Vulpine
by Saphroneth
Summary: Not entirely serious story. So, performing a summoning technique without a contract lands you with your most appropriate summon? Naruto sees someone summoning while still in the academy, and gives it a go.
1. Chapter 1

Vulpine

Naruto Uzumaki, age eleven, was thoroughly bored stiff.

He'd been trying to practice the Clone technique, the Bunshin, and no matter how much chakra he put into it, nothing worked. His Transformation was much better, really… that just _worked._ Apart from forming the picture of what he wanted, it was the easiest thing in the world. It was a good thing he'd kept his instruction sheet on that one, it really was easier with the Ram seal than the Reverse Ram that everyone else used. And they still had to use the other two hand seals! Pity the Clone didn't work the same way.

Taijutsu training… no thanks. It always hurt performing his stances, the positions involved were too awkward. Oh well, if he wanted to be a Kage the thing he needed wasn't silly little clone techniques, or something. It was big, flashy attacks that beat anything. Just like the Fourth did to all the Stone ninja back in the last war. Man, but the Fourth was cool.

Suddenly, his ears pricked. He'd heard a slight rustling.

Carefully moving as quietly as he could, he saw some old guy in the top of a tree. The guy was looking away from him, and Naruto admitted to himself that was probably for the best. He was pretty great at hiding, but anyone old who was still a ninja could probably spot his flashy orange jumpsuit in a second.

Deciding to see what Old Guy was going to do, Naruto stayed as still as he could manage.

He was quickly rewarded.

Old Guy bit his thumb, made a series of hand seals – a real technique! Naruto paid attention like he never had in class, memorizing the seal sequence – and slapped his hand on the ground, producing a puff of smoke, and…

A toad the size of a small room.

Awesome.

Old Guy spoke to the toad for a minute, then vanished off towards the wall. The toad hopped off in a different direction, seeming to be headed for the Hokage tower.

Wait a sec… the Old Guy summoned a toad. That must mean he was one of the awesome ninja that Iruka talked about a few months ago, the ones that could summon animals. And if Old Guy could summon toads, then he was…

Like the Fourth. All the pictures of the Fourth's final battle were of him on the back of a huge toad.

Naruto grinned. Now he knew the secret to summoning toads too! He was another step closer to being awesome like the Fourth.

No time like the present. Naruto focused his chakra as hard as he could, bringing an aura of blue light up around his body. He was going to get this right!

Bite thumb. Five handseals, and…

Naruto Uzumaki vanished in a puff of smoke.

* * *

Kaen, a fox roughly the size of a large wolf, bounced through the underbrush to where his senses led him. Whatever had happened, it was unusual, and unusual was either or both of Worrying, and Fun.

He'd been nearby when the chakra flare signalled someone was entering the Forest of Confusion, and couldn't help but go and look. Whoever said that curiosity killed the cat hadn't met one of the fox clan.

Bounding lithely over a fallen tree, he skidded to a halt a few feet short of what appeared to be a human, though it was a little smaller than the old stories and a great deal better dressed. Orange was a fox colour, and that was okay with Kaen.

Hm. He hadn't walked in, that was for sure, he wasn't covered in the paint/tar/feathers/mud/slime/anything that would fit in a trap that would indicate that he had.

Kaen made up his mind, and walked over.

"So, where'd you come from then?"

* * *

"And so then, it looked awesome, and I tried it, and there was a poof but not the normal poof of a normal jutsu, and then I felt kinda weird and I was here." Naruto babbled.

"Interesting… it occasionally happens, someone tries to perform a Summon without actually having a contract, and they end up in a Summon realm themselves…" Kaen mused. This was interesting. "Tell you what, could you channel as much chakra as you did to bring yourself here?"

Naruto nodded silently, and formed the Ram seal. After a moment, a blue current of visible chakra formed around him, before being joined by two others.

"Stop! Stop!" Kaen called, and the swirling wind that had begun subsided.

The fox shook his head wryly. "Imagine… You have more chakra right now than most full grown ninja. At least, you channelled more than most probably could, so you may have yet more in reserve. You said that this was the first technique that really worked for you?"

The boy nodded.

"Not surprised, with that much. Bad points for that: you'll always have trouble with controlling that amount of power, and probably it would be best if you got to training to correct that control problem right away. That Clone technique you mentioned having trouble with might – _might_ – be forever beyond you. Good news, though, is that by the time you're fully mature you'll probably have more chakra than you could possibly use up. And, of course, it means you're one of the rare ninja who could use the full potential of a contract… already."

He grinned heartily. "Might also explain why you seem to have ADHD on the order of a young fox clan member, at that…" Kaen broke off, and looked up. "When did you climb that tree?"

"Just now. Felt like it."

"Yep, thought so. Well, let's go and meet the older and wiser foxes."

Naruto clambered down the tree. "You mean talking foxes have an old man Hokage as well?"

"Perhaps, depends on who this old man Hokage is."

* * *

"Hm. Turned up here, you say?" A small, clearly elderly arctic fox that was apparently – at least for short – called Mandias asked.

Kaen nodded. "Accidental reverse summon, I think."

"Remarkable. That means his closest affinity for animals is with foxes, which could well be a good thing for us."

Mandias cracked some joints and walked over to Naruto. "Mind if I have a little of your blood? I could tell a lot about you from it."

"Er, OK, sure. I heal kinda fast anyway, so it's not a problem." The boy offered his hand, and Mandias delicately drew a thin cut along the ball of the thumb before licking up some of the resultant blood.

"Hm…" he smacked his tongue. "Lots of chakra, this blood feels like it should be flammable there's so much. Wind affinity, nice… secondary in Earth… traces of unnatural heritage – nothing special, not much power in it – and a tint of, a tint of…"

Mandias looked up, and met eyes with Kaen.

"Youkai. Red. I think we found where the boss ended up since last time she got summoned."

"Watcha mean, boss, old fox guy?"

Mandias sighed. "Ever heard of a spirit called the Kyuubi no Kitsune?"

"Yeah! The awesome Fourth Hokage beat it when it attacked my village, about eleven years ago! He's supposed to have killed it or something, but it killed him as well." Naruto looked unhappy for a moment, "But then, I guess it's not all bad, because it means he really was the best ninja in the world if he beat the Kyuubi!"

The arctic fox looked incredulous for a moment, then bashed his head against a tree. "Stupid, stupid! I should have known something was wrong. Alright. Naruto. The Kyuubi no Kitsune, being fox shaped, is a spirit that's close enough to one of us that we're on the same summon scroll. Last time she-"

"She?" Naruto frowned.

"You've never met an annoyed female, I take it?"

Naruto considered for a moment. Thinking about it, actually, Sakura was the scariest person he knew.

"Okay, you win."

"Thank you. Now, she was summoned last almost sixty years ago, and wouldn't you know it but she hasn't been seen since. Now, I don't know what happened between then and the time she attacked your village, but I think I know what happened since. When were you born?"

"October tenth, the same day the Kyuubi attacked."

"Right. I think you're being used as a prison for her."

Naruto blinked. _What?_

"You've gotta be kidding! I mean, I'm not evil, and-"

"I said a prison. You're not the Kyuubi, if you were your chakra would be pure red. Your system's tinted with red, but it's also got just a hint of the gold of a celestially touched. You're human as I am fox."

"But…" Naruto stuttered. "If that's true, then wouldn't you want to let her out?"

Mandias smiled gently. "I have no intention of doing so. Either she was being controlled in some way, in which case we need to stop it before finding some way to let her out again safely, or she actually tried to destroy your village, in which case she thoroughly deserves her time-out."

Naruto giggled, partly in shock but mostly because the idea of the most powerful spirit of pure destruction the world knew of in a "time out" was hilarious.

* * *

"I would like you to meet Kuda, the pipe-fox, and our scroll guardian Lani."

"Evening." Kuda muttered, seeming half-asleep.

Lani looked over on hearing Mandias' voice. "Oh, a human? How did he get here?"

Mandias smiled. "Accidental reverse summon. I think he probably needs to get our contract, it's the only way he's getting home. That and he's a natural fox-summoner. Do you know he actually manages to regularly prank his village's elite troops?"

Lani let out a barking laugh. "Sounds just like you were. Or I was. Or, indeed, any of us. But he did it wearing that orange suit, against some humans?"

Nod.

"Huh. Must be pretty good at hiding his colour, then." Lani reached into a storage space and pulled out a huge scroll. "Right, then. Sign with your fingerprints and name, in blood – hello, that's strange." She looked closely at the scroll. "Last summoner's still on here, so he's alive, but the contract's broken. That's not supposed to happen, especially as the person in question would be about a hundred by now. Ever heard of an Uchiha Madara? If he's still alive he'd be someone famous."

"Eh, nope. I know an Uchiha-guy, but nobody else like that."

"Strange." Lani repeated. "Ah well, if you would? Splendid."

Mandias flicked his tail for a moment. "Lani, you're the best of us with summoning techniques. How would we be able to get young Naruto back to his home?"

Lani pulled out some smaller scrolls and began flipping through them. "Well, after the first time we can handle the transit easily, just get the kid to summon Kuda whenever he needs to travel here and then he can handle the reverse summon to get him back where he came from afterwards. This first time, though…"

She closed her eyes for a moment, then snapped her claws. "Got it. Ichimaru's still the fastest of us, right?"

Mandias nodded. "Easily."

"Right. Give him one of our disposable summon scrolls, key it to the kid and send him the long way. Either that, or get him to sneak through the Toad's path."

Kuda stirred. "I will contact him." The pipe-fox blew a small puff of smoke that wound lazily off into the trees. Lani, meanwhile, busied herself retrieving the simple summon scroll and connecting it, not to "The fox of the Forest of Confusion by the name of _", but to "The fox summoner, Naruto Uzumaki". Seeing that brought Naruto a lovely little thrill of warmth. He _belonged_.

Then he noticed Lani staring at the name she'd written.

"Maelstrom… I wonder…"

"Hey, what is it?"

She started. "Oh, nothing. I suppose it's just a suspicion, is all. We won't know if I'm right or not for decades, if ever."

A blur of light shot in from the direction the smoke had gone, bounced off two trees and a branch, and came to rest on the floor as another fox. This one had silver fur, a tail twice as long as his body, and a pronounced squint.

"Hi, boss. What do you want me to do?"

Lani finished writing, charged the scroll with as much chakra as she could, and passed it to the silver. "Take this to Konoha and use it. Then head back."

Ichimaru shook his head. "Always courier missions. I don't know why I put that much effort into becoming fast sometimes."

"Because you are thoroughly impatient. Now, get going."

Ichimaru shot off into the distance, a flowing ribbon of silvery fur.

* * *

"Ah, Gama-igobo. What did Jiraiya-boy want you for?"

"Only message delivery, Sage Fukasaku. I delivered his reports to the Hokage's office, though I was summoned inside Konoha itself."

Fukasaku chuckled. "Jiraiya always was a bit lazy. Well done, anyway."

Suddenly, the Sage toad snapped his head around as a blur of reflected sunlight caught his eye. _Damn foxes!_

He braced himself. Paint bombs again? Stink bombs? Stealing his staff? Or maybe something fiendish they hadn't tried before, like setting the lake on fire, or… or he didn't know what! What was that undoubtedly master prankster going to do now the foxes were bored enough again to start their infernal-

_plop._

Oh. So it looked like the fox just wanted to use the long distance travel well.

"Hey! Come back here, you impolite carnivore! You could at least have asked!"

* * *

"Now, remember, all you have to do to summon the right fox is to use at least enough chakra – try experimenting with that, it won't blow up or anything if you use too little – and focus on the fox you want."

Kuda closed his eyes for a second. "The kid seems lonely. I'll stay with him if he wants, at least nights. And when he's here, I'll be ready to bring him back."

Naruto felt happiness bubble up in him. They were willing to be so much nicer than the villagers-

The villagers. So, that was why they disliked him. But what better way to show them wrong than doing the best he could.

Lani was nodding thoughtfully. "You might have to summon Kaen as the signal you're ready to come here instead, then, Naruto. But as Kuda offered, summon him first when you get home to check you're doing it right."

Naruto began to reply, and vanished with a wrenching pull into darkness. Before, he'd not actually felt anything much, but with a contract to pull him through it was a lot more intense.

And much shorter.

He reappeared on top of the Hokage monument, lit by the setting sun.

Wow. How far had he gone, if it was sunset here and the sun was still up – albeit getting red – there?

"Thanks, speedy fox guy!"

"No problem, call on me if you need a good prank done." Ichimaru dismissed himself with a _pouf_.

Naruto bounded home, incidentally reassuring the ANBU assigned to keep tabs on him that he'd just slipped surveillance again. He did that with distressing regularity nowadays, to the point it was practically considered ANBU initiation to keep track of the hyperactive kid's general whereabouts for some large fraction of a day.

* * *

Back in his apartment, he closed the curtains, looked around furtively, and steeled himself.

"Well, here we go. Summoning!"

The pipe-fox appeared in one of the familiar puffs of smoke. "Evening again. Bit of a mess, this place."

Naruto looked downcast. "I don't exactly have a family, so… well."

"I get the idea. Well, you headed to sleep?"

"I'll have supper first. Can't beat Ramen!" Naruto pulled out a pair of instant ramen cups, frowned, and got out another.

Then he looked to his guest. "You want one?"

Kuda had drifted over to the table. "How much of this stuff do you eat?"

"Eh… mostly three or four cups a meal."

"No, I meant in relation to other things."

Naruto blinked. "People willingly eat stuff that's not Ramen?"

* * *

"Night." Naruto muttered, already halfway to asleep.

* * *

Kuda watched over him from above, curled around the light hanging.

_He's so young. It doesn't feel right, that kits should have to fight like this, live like this. I can understand why the Kyuubi was so enraged, but not her methods._

Naruto fidgeted in bed, moving in fits and starts.

_Probably having a nightmare, poor guy._

_Oh, screw it._

Kuda drifted down and wrapped himself around Naruto's neck. The warmth seemed to comfort him, and he stopped moving as fiercely. A hand moved up to touch him, make sure he was there.

Kuda settled in for the night.

Naruto Uzumaki slept with another making him feel safe, for the first time in his life.

* * *

"Erf… morning Kuda. And thanks."

"Not a problem. Now, isn't it time you were somewhere else? Your alarm went off, after all."

"Oh, yeah…" Naruto went to have a quick shower, calling out as he turned the water on. "You want to come?"

"I might, yes. Though it would be best if you were to allow me to hide on your arm."

"Eh? Would that work?" Naruto asked sceptically. "I mean, is it more hide-y than normal?"

"I _am _a Kudagitsune. I can become a mere marking on the skin, while still able to hear all that is said and see all that I would normally be able to…" Kuda remembered who he was talking to. "Yes."

"Cool. And I was thinking that I should head over to the fox-place-"

"The Forest of Mystery."

"Yeah, there, after the Academy. I want to see what awesome things Mandias has for me!"

* * *

"Hey, Naruto!" Kiba called as the Uzumaki entered the class. "Any reason you smell more like fox than normal?"

"_Don't mention us, at least not yet."_

"Eh, dunno. Maybe I wanted to dress the part of the trickster more than normal and went overboard!"

Kiba laughed. "Could be. What's today's prank, then?"

Naruto grinned from ear to ear. "Wait and see!"

Hinata blushed. Naruto was so confident, so full of strength… and there was something moving on him that she hadn't seen before. She could only see that it was moving differently than him, though, his blaze of blue chakra obscured almost all the details.

Iruka came in, accompanied by Mizuki. "Now, class, today we'll look into the third of the academy basic techniques, the Replacement-

Bang!

Smoke bombs detonated in every pencil drawer in the teacher's desk.

Iruka sighed. "Naruto."

"Eh, someone must have replaced the erasers! Kinda neat coincidence, huh?"

"I would give you a detention if I weren't honestly impressed that you managed to prime smoke bombs for the exact time I spoke, a day in advance, without my noticing their presence. Instead, I'll make you take your own notes on this class – and they better be word-perfect, or I _will_ give you that detention."

Naruto gulped.

* * *

"Good afternoon, Naruto. Now, there are several things we could work on for you, and I'd prefer it if you were to work hard enough to get them all done as soon as possible."

"Wow, old man Mandias! You're gonna teach me stuff?"

"Of course. You're a rare individual, and in any case we haven't had a summoner willing to learn all this before. Our last just wanted to use the Kyuubi, not any of our other talents. Now, here's the list."

Mandias unrolled a scroll. On it was:

_Pranks_

_Stealth_

_Speed_

_Dodging_

_Control_

_Summons_

_Taijutsu style_

_Wind_

_Earth_

_Youkai_

_Transformation_

_Senjutsu_

Naruto licked his lips. "It's… kinda long."

"Has to be, there's a lot of stuff to get through. Now, Kuda's report tells me that you're quite good on the first two already, but you need some serious work on the rest. And the quickest way to fix the third one is going to have to wait. So… your first training session is going to be in climbing trees with chakra."

"Ooh, so that's how you guys climb trees an' stuff!"

"Exactly. It's one of the training exercises that's useful. There are many that are and many more that aren't."

"Got it!" Naruto ran over to one of the trees and put his foot against it, before focusing chakra.

Mandias winced as the tree collapsed. "Might have been a bit much chakra, there!"

"Sorry!"

Crash.

"Still too much?"

"Still too much. Why not start small and work up."

* * *

"Woohoo!"

Kaen glanced up. "Oh, hi again. I see you worked out how to stick properly."

"Yeah! And only the second day too!"

"Right. Next thing is to keep it up while you're jumping from place to place. Start practicing at a low level, I'll make sure to catch you if you fall."

* * *

"Good. You have the kind of ability with tree climbing I wanted you to have. Not bad after only four days. Now, from now on you will be summoned outside the forest proper." Mandias gave a fox grin. "This means, of course, that you will have to make it through the trapped perimeter. Watch out for mud, paint, small explosives… well, I'm sure you can guess."

"You mean a kinda prank obstacle course! Sounds fun!"

"Watch yourself, though, kid. Some of these traps are fiendish."

"I'll be fine!"

* * *

"Well, Mandias?" Lani asked, joining the elderly fox at his scrying pool. It didn't have much range, but could cover at least the forest perimeter.

"Well, he made it past the fake tree made of collapsing paint, and he dodged the jam cannon. Next should be the-"

SPLAT!

"…the seal trap containing an earth/water dragon?"

"Yep. And he only got splashed despite all the mud, not bad."

The small Naruto in the pool, clothes now flecked with brown, came to a small river with a net over it. Not being a fool and noticing the tiny drops of something sticky attached to the net, he went downriver until he found a bridge and began to cross.

"Wait for it…"

The bridge elastic released as Naruto took his weight off the first half, which acted as one big trigger catch.

TWANG!

Mandias looked up from the pool, to see a screaming Naruto fly through the air overhead and land in a lake.

"I better go get him." Kaen volunteered from the other side of the pool.

* * *

"I suppose you might be interested in learning how to walk on water?"

"You mean like Kaen did to get me out? That sounds awesome!"

"Right, that's a yes then."

"Where did all those traps come from, by the way, old fox guy? There were loads of them, and really inventive!"

Mandias smirked slightly. "Well, we are a mischief totem animal. We're very much into playing tricks, and if someone manages an especially good one it gets added to the perimeter defences. That both preserves it for the future and makes it so any invader's probably going to be annoyed, tired, soaked and glowing in the dark from all the paint."

* * *

"Right. Your control's about as good as we can get it with water walking," Mandias shook his head. Naruto's rate of learning seemed to be accelerating. "So we're going to try working with your other chakra source."

Naruto flinched. "You mean…"

"Yes, and don't worry. Worst comes to worst, I can handle the Kyuubi."

"Okay. If you say so… how do I do this?"

"I would recommend trying to draw on more chakra than normal, but I doubt that would be safe here with how large your regular reserves are. I suggest you simply try to feel the same emotions as her, maybe that'll help."

* * *

Naruto sat in the centre of a small depression lit only by fox fire dancing in the trees, frowning in intense concentration. Kori, a fox with strangely translucent fur, stepped up beside his Sage. "How long has he been trying?"

"It's been four hours today. I think there's only one thing to do."

Kori flicked his tail. "If you say so…" He flicked it again, and a fine cloud of downy fur flew off the tip, spreading into a rippling, rainbow-hued mist.

Naruto blinked. The world seemed to shimmer, then a puff of smoke surrounded him. So he'd been summoned back to Konoha already?

Then the smoke cleared, and his heart leapt into his throat.

Kuda was lying on the floor of his apartment, almost cut in half by an indistinct figure with a slim blade.

"Naru…to…" The little pipe fox seemed to gasp, then fell silent.

Naruto clenched his fists. "Why did you have to do that, you monster?"

"Monster?" The figure chuckled. "No, it's you who's the monster. And now your filthy familiar is killed, your power over the Hokage is broken and he'll celebrate like everyone else when I kill you!"

Naruto barely heard over the roaring in his ears. This could not be allowed to happen. Someone had decided to murder him, in his sleep at that as the hour was so late, and they'd killed his friend when he was helpless.

A rush of strength rose up in him, and he lost himself in the sudden intense bloodlust.

* * *

Mandias and Kori watched as a volcano of red youkai blasted from the form of their summoner.

Kori shook his head. "Well, that worked."

Mandias wrapped his tail around the other fox and pulled him aside as Naruto suddenly charged forward, aiming for something only he could see. "Dispel it, now!"

"I already did, something's wrong!"

Mandias skidded to a halt, the old fox seeming to shed the weight of ages. "Right, our suspicions are confirmed. Tell Lani, trigger the emergency clause!" The Sage's form pulsed, and his eyes began to shine with a faint yellow light.

Kori charged off into the distance, aiming for the home of the Fox' contract-keeper.

The arctic fox smiled slightly. "At least I can hold her off. Needle Jizo!"

His fur animated and elongated to several feet in length, and he lunged in an attempt to pin down the enraged form of his Summoner.

* * *

With a splash, Mandias abruptly appeared in a sewer-like water pipe. The water level was fairly low, but easily thigh-deep on the elderly fox.

After a moment to refocus on where he was – such as no longer attempting to restrain a berserk Jinchuriki – Mandias floated to the top of the water and shook himself. "So, Lani activated the clause. I'm surprised; this isn't what I expected his mental landscape to be like." The arctic fox began to trot towards a distant light.

As he approached, he differentiated it as two lights – one blue, one red. The red was shifting uncomfortably…

He broke into a run. He had his suspicions on why the Kyuubi was acting so different to when he last saw her, but there was only one way to find which was correct.

"MILLICENT MEHABITEL MUDD! _What_ do you think you are doing?"

The great red beast looked suddenly puzzled. "OZY?" Then she gave a high, pained fox scream, and the flash of recognition faded. For a moment, Mandias – _Ozymandias_, the oldest of foxes – saw a pattern in her eyes.

Three tomoe, chasing one another.

"I should have known he was only after the contract for the Bijuu who shares it…" he muttered, before lunging forward and taking a small fragment of fresh youkai. Retreating, he swirled it in his maw. "Hmmm… three separate illusions at least. Emotional letterboxing, false surroundings and a _big_ memory blocker. Oh, ouch, will suppression as well. But only for the purposes of implanting commands by the original caster of the illusion? I am _so_ glad someone removed him from our contract for us." Individually the illusions were merely extremely powerful, but together they covered one another's weaknesses. The false surroundings prevented anything from snapping her out of the others, the memory blocker prevented her breaking it from within and the emotional constraint made her easily predictable and unlikely to accidentally break the others.

Too bad a Sage now knew about them. Ozymandias focused his chakra, and began to lens it through his Celestial Gates.

All his usable, Sage-augmented chakra for the breaking of one illusion. A fair trade, as such things went.

"For my power to fight, given up for this task. Let the trap of the body, of twisted world, be broken, for I am not the target and yet I will resist it. Bend, crack, _break!_"

Instantly he was drained, his fur losing much of its' lustre and his legs giving out.

The Kyuubi blinked. That fox definitely looked familiar, and unlike a moment ago it wasn't shouting abuse at her. What just happened? Eh, no matter, it deserved to die anyway. Everything had to burn, destroyed by the lovely flames and the collapsing ground and the waves that made everything so deliciously chaotic and…

"Millie." The Kyuubi frowned. Was that her name? It sounded familiar. "The Buddha put out a hit on you."

Without thinking, she replied, "Of course, I knew too little." Then pain crashed through her.

Through the screaming headache she heard that maddeningly familiar voice. "Your name is Millicent Mehabitel Mudd! You were born of the youkai shed by the Ten tailed beast's destruction a thousand years ago! I was your friend, in our childhood and beyond!"

Damn! This voice had to be causing her the pain! Someone had hit her with an illusion – the pain increased at that thought, and her thoughts wavered.

But there was really only one solution someone could accept when the word illusion came up like this.

She wrenched her youkai into a scramble pattern, and after a moment of resistance something broke.

Outside, Naruto collapsed on the forest floor.

* * *

"Okay, what the hell happened next?"

Mandias, as he explained he preferred still to be called, had finished explaining the first nine centuries of life of the greatest of the nine Bijuu, as well as his own part in it as a brother not by blood.

"After that, none of us know. Uchiha Madara got the Summon contract at only about age 25, and he was a great deal of fun at that time, but after a short time he stopped calling us, only bringing out Millie when he needed something broken. We think that he eventually overused her – this would be about seventy years ago – and she either protested or just was a bit scatterbrained, and he ensnared her in that horrible illusion web. That's probably the time he started using her in serious battle. Since we know the Wood release bloodline suppresses youkai, the reason she was docile under its' influence was likely just lack of strength. Since then… nothing we can tell. Millie's memory is a bit spotty since the first illusion."

He shifted a little. "Good thing is, though, that now the only disadvantage of using her chakra is basically the sheer potency of it could still burn your system. That as a problem should fade as you get used to more of it – consider it a trump card for now."

A slight grin. "And if you want to keep her happy, just be interesting. Preferably pranks."

* * *

"I can do what?"

"Yep. Each of the Bijuu has a talent born of their ridiculous amounts of chakra – and their personality. Millie, being so mercurial in thought, could shapechange, and so can you. Your regeneration comes from just constantly low-level shifting into your own form. Now, as you can imagine, that's a useful little trick."

"Hang on… does that mean that everyone else's transformation is just a disguise?"

"Of course. Otherwise people would turn into monsters for a fight, or insects to scout, or birds to travel long distances."

"And I _could_ do all that?"

"Indeed. Even inanimate objects, I think."

Naruto began to chuckle, and everyone in Konoha simultaneously got a chill down the back of their necks.

* * *

"Kajiura?"

"Medium sized, has the ability to coat herself in fire."

"Okhi?"

"Small, able to generate water."

"Doko?"

"Very small but can allow the use of the Underground Move technique to any one other person as well as himself, so long as they're in contact."

"Good. It's important to know your summons, more so as the foxes can't use handseals and all their arts are based off pure chakra control, each taking many years to perfect. They're all unique."

"Yeah, it's kinda like academy lessons but a lot less boring I guess. Especially when I can actually meet them. I know that history'd be a lot less boring if I knew the people involved – 's why I paid attention in the lesson about the founding, I kinda know about Madara after all. Er, they didn't mention his foxes, is that because he didn't use you or what?"

"He stopped using us before he was thirty, which may have been before the founding. I assume they mentioned only that he used Millie – well, they would have said the Kyuubi?"

"Yeah, in a big fight against the First Hokage sixty years ago. I think he's supposed to have died at age forty."

"And it all fits together. That's when Millie never returned. Let's see… death for a tailed beast is temporary, they're too strong. Anything more than about two tails of power would detonate anything non living as a container, and three also exceeds anything non human. So, the logical conclusion is that you're not the first container. Actually, nine tails of power is a ridiculously large amount of chakra, I think it's only your heritage that's protecting you there."

"How does the tail measuring thing work?"

"I thought we went over this. Each additional tail of power represents a doubling. So the idea is that the Sage, the container of the Ten Tails, split much of its' power into nine packets of chakra, one to nine tails' worth. Not sure where the rest is, could just be slack in the main packets, but it's going to be anything from just nosing a tail of chakra to well over _nine_ – adding powers of two like that can be strange."

* * *

Naruto snickered. They were never going to figure THIS one out.

He had spent a few hours scouting out the restaurant and a distillery, and had managed to find a few bottles of sake that were thrown out when a batch was improperly produced. A little time in the fridge for the sake, freezing out the water content, and he had some of the most potent alcohol in the elemental countries.

Placing his doctored bottle next to him, he made sure it was visible from the till and shapeshifted into another bottle.

A quick double-Replacement later, and his everclear-strong sake bottle was among the collection for meal refreshment. Now to wait until someone ordered it…

A series of crashes came from the restaurant, and a horde of patrons charged out. They were followed by a girl with her hair in buns, a long haired person that was _probably_ a boy, and a tall man in green spandex who all left by the window.

As Naruto moved around to get a better look, he overheard them talking. Apparently, someone had gotten drunk from merely the fumes and promptly gone berserk.

He giggled to himself, and in the back of his mind he heard a high fox laugh.

* * *

"Listening? Good. Now, to learn this, you have to be able to be absolutely still." Mandias curled his tail tighter around the gnarled walking stick. "And if you're not absolutely still, or you do this wrongly, I will sadly have to hit you in the face with this cane."

"Okay. What's it do? And where'd you get it?"

"Well, bad things happen if you try and channel natural energy while moving. And the stick stops the bad thing. I pinched it from the Frog clan a few decades ago, I understand the former owner was very annoyed."

* * *

"Oh well, not everything works straight away."

Naruto scowled. He could channel Nature energy, but he couldn't retain it when he started moving again. If he wanted to use his newly enhanced chakra, he would be pinned to a single spot on the ground, though fortunately he could at least move his arms.

"And look on the bright side, this means you can summon me now."

Naruto blinked. "Huh?"

"And I thought we went over this… a Sage who has used nature chakra for centuries, such as myself, becomes part of the natural world to a sufficient degree that they cannot be summoned by mere normal human chakra. And using Youkai would be… contraindicated from the point of view of stealth."

* * *

"Perform the Bunshin, Naruto."

"Aw! Why not something else, something I actually have the control to perform? It's not my fault that half a year of intensive chakra exercises can't change that I have enough chakra to move Konoha to a new site and the Bunshin takes… uuh… about one five-thousandth of one percent of my-"

Iruka interrupted his student's rant. "The Bunshin, Naruto. Making excuses isn't going to help you in a real fight."

Naruto muttered to himself about the Bunshin being not helpful in a proper fight either, then dutifully channelled the smallest amount of chakra he actually could and formed the seal.

"Bunshin!" Three half dead replicas appeared, each on about five times the normal chakra requirement. That was completely amazing as far as he was concerned, as that pegged his relative control as being able to actually perform anything _not_ a flimsy little illusion only useful against civilians.

"Naruto Uzumaki, fail. I'm sorry, Naruto, but there's a reason they're the basics. Maybe try again next year?"

Mizuki tried to argue for him, but Iruka cut him off.

_He is probably afraid of showing favouritism, especially since others might conclude you are influencing him to allow you to pass._

Kuda was probably right… Ah well. Nothing said he couldn't try again in another year, after all. But by that point he'd have done so much chakra control exercise he'd be _spare._

* * *

"There is another way to pass, you know."

Naruto listened. Steal the scroll of forbidden seals? Learn something from it? It sounded too good to be true, surely there were _some_ techniques on the scroll with no reason for being forbidden but massive chakra cost?

_It probably is too good to be true. He smells dishonest. But go along with it._

* * *

Naruto crept through the night-time Hokage tower, searching carefully for the Scroll. Where was it…

_Trouble!_

The boy whirled. "Ah, hello old man Hokage. I guess you caught me, huh? Well, no problem, I'll definitely have time to pass with this!"

Naruto scored his first victory over an enemy in a thoroughly unconventional manner, and with Kuda's laughter hissing in his ears he legged it with the scroll.

"First one… ooh! Taiju Kage Bunshin? 'Shadow clones drain large amounts of chakra, and the multiple variant of the technique makes this drain all the more intense'? 'Memory backlash'? Solid clones? This means…"

Naruto pumped his fist. "This is perfect! Goodbye, weak point!"

_It's better than that. As of when you learn this, your clones are a strength._

"Right! Okay, seals, seals… only three? Neat…"

* * *

_Going to learn something else?_

Naruto sat back on the floor, a little tired but triumphant, and began to channel nature chakra – making him temporarily a sensor – as his early warning system.

"I'll have a look. Hmm… Shiki fujin? Nope… no… nope… why are there so many damn suicide techniques… a technique that just kills you? Wha… aha! Spiral Wind Cannon! Hmm… massive drain, Wind natured obviously, takes a hell of a lot of control? Aw well, good to have something to shoot for... and with, of course… Kuda, can you memorize the page? I think we're nearly out of time."

* * *

"Hi, Iruka-sensei! I did the special test Mizuki mentioned, does it have to be him who grades me or can you do it now?"

Iruka blinked. "Special test?"

Mizuki's laughter rang in the trees. As he explained at great length how he'd managed to trick the boy who was really a demon in disguise, honest, I mean just look at him, that shade of blonde can't be natural, and besides it was obvious because the boy had…

Naruto tuned him out and bit his thumb.

"Summoning: death from above!"

A fox the size of a building appeared and flattened Mizuki.

"So, er, Sensei, should we take the scroll back now?"

Iruka blinked. "You just summoned a fox."

"Yeah, I kinda found out that if you try and copy the summoning technique with no contract, strange stuff happens."

* * *

"Most interesting, Naruto. Why did you not inform me of this contract before?"

"Well, I was kinda busy training. They're a lot better at teaching than the academy teachers, though I guess that if Mizuki's one of them it's not a surprise."

"Right. Well, I think that to _fail_ someone with a contract who knows how to use it would just be silly. You've graduated, Naruto. And I'd be interested in hearing how these foxes differ from the other summons I've met."

"Wow! How many types have you seen?"

"Hm, well, not counting the ones I met across the battlefield, I have the Monkey contract – appropriate, I suppose – and then there's the Toads, the Snakes and the Slugs held by my three students, the Sannin."

"They must have been awesome! How did they get theirs?"

"Well, Jiraiya got his by accident. He saw me summoning and decided to copy me, but as he had no contract he was teleported to Mount Myoboku, the realm of the toads…"

Naruto fell off his seat laughing.

"Oh, that's just priceless! The sheer irony of it …bwahaha! I mean, what are the odds!"

The Sandiame looked concerned. "Naruto, are you okay?"

A voice spoke. "He'll be okay once it's out of his system. Greetings, Hokage of Konoha. I am Kuda, Pipe-fox, and I inhabit his skin during the day as an animate tattoo. The reason he is laughing is that that is exactly how he obtained _us_ as summons."

* * *

"There aren't any shortcuts to being a Ninja. I would recommend, though, that you ask your grandfather what his summons, the Monkeys, think of the best path to strength. After all, they're gonna be yours one day, right?"

Konohamaru grinned. "Yeah! That's right! I'll be a ninja in the monkey way, and that'll beat you any day!"

Naruto matched his grin. "You want to say that again, chimpy? Foxes are good too! We'll settle it when we fight over who gets to be Hokage!"

Ebisu stroked his chin. _Well, that's one way to put it. Hopefully the Honourable – er… okay, the Honourable Konohamaru, will actually listen to me now. Better see the Hokage about that summons idea, though – it makes entirely too much sense to be ignored._

* * *

"Hey! While we're waiting why don't I introduce you guys to my summons!"

Sasuke frowned. "_You _have a summon? The person who only passed by an act of god?"

Naruto scowled. "I told you, the teacher was looking for a reason specifically to fail me. But anyway." He sat down cross-legged on the grass, and closed his eyes, feeling for the natural energy of the world.

"Naruto! You're not supposed to be going to sleep!"

_That ought to be enough._ He bit his thumb and flashed through the seals for his favourite technique. "Summoning: Old guy!"

Mandias appeared in a puff of smoke. "Morning, Naruto. Are these your new pack – er, teammates, then?"

"Yeah! That's Sasuke, he's pretty good and supposed to be from a clan, but an emo. And that's Sakura, who's really strong, but only when hitting me. Heheh…"

Mandias frowned. "Indeed?" He turned to the other two genin. "Tell me, would you two mind if I were to have a taste of your blood?"

Sakura cringed. "Ew! Why would you even ask something like that! Naruto, if your summons are all like this…"

Naruto waved his hands. "No, no, it's not like that. It's really handy! When he did it with mine, he was able to tell what affinity I was, as well as… anything else unusual."

Sasuke wordlessly walked over, slit the ball of his thumb with a kunai, and passed it to the fox.

"Thanks. Hmm, Lightning and Fire, interesting, a very strong attacking pair of elements. Pretty good chakra reserves, a tinge of black chakra, I wonder where-ah. Bloodlimit, eye-based, active but trauma-locked-"

"What." Sasuke was glaring now. "What do you mean, trauma locked?"

Mandias met his gaze. "Your blood and the chakra in it has a slight taste of an active power, but it's not been used in years. Since you're not an idiot, that means it's traumatically locked. You might not even have noticed it activating. Now, as I was saying, you have a small amount of non human chakra. It's not exactly rare, Naruto has it too, but since yours is black you might want to be careful as you'll be easier to mentally influence than normal. You can train to overcome that, but if I didn't mention it you wouldn't have known."

Sasuke went over to a stump and sat on it in annoyance, thinking over what the fox had said.

_Well, there's an easy way to check if he's right. Get our - very late - sensei to give me a chakra affinity test._

Sakura, meanwhile, had hesitantly walked over. "Er… can I…"

"Go ahead." The arctic fox nodded regally.

Sakura copied Sasuke, making a small incision in her thumb and passing the kunai to Mandias.

The fox took it in his tail and licked the blade. His eyes widened.

"Saints… Naruto! Who put your team together? This is ridiculous!"

"Er, I was considered to have passed last because of the Mizuki thing, Sasuke's the best in the year and Sakura's the best Kunoichi."

"Right, because if this were the weird chakra club it would be less strange." He turned to Sakura. "What are your parents like as ninja?"

"Er…" Sakura was getting worried. "They're civilian…"

"Your chakra's the strangest I've ever felt. It's about normal in amount, but it's split between two types. A small pool that's the one you can normally use, and a bigger one that's… well, you're not entirely human either. Hmm… you've got a strong gold chakra tint and two chakra pools. I assume you've got an internal dialogue sometimes?"

Sakura flinched.

"Thought so, it's nothing to be ashamed of. You, Sakura, have divine heritage. Potent divine heritage, strong enough to be usable. I daresay that with a little practice, you could switch around your traits on the fly. You're…" he licked the kunai again, "…Water natured at the moment, but that's not something that's set in stone." Mandias shook his head. "And I thought things were strange before… all three of you could have True Names. You could all learn them by thirty. Twenty, even. This is ridiculous."

"Oi! Old guy! What should we do while we wait?"

Mandias flicked his tail. "Stratagem twenty-eight."

"Oh, yeah. Kage Bunshin!" A massive horde of Narutos appeared and began busily messing around with the forest, grass, lake and everywhere else they possibly could.

Sakura frowned. "Lure them onto the roof, then take away the ladder? What do you mean?"

"The clones are trapping the place. If this sensei of yours wants to give you a test, let him have one of his own."

Time passed. Sakura and Sasuke asked Mandias for more information on their apparent lineages. Naruto's thousand clones set up ever more elaborate traps, including some which would have been impossible without parts of the machinery being shapeshifted clones.

Naruto dropped back down next to his team. "This is ridiculous. Okay, guys, the place is about as trapped as I can make it without being obvious, and I checked – he's not near enough for me to sense, which means he's not in the training ground."

"You're a sensor now?"

"Only when I'm not moving and have some time to concentrate. Hey, old guy? Any of the foxes that might work well with these guys?"

Mandias frowned. "Tell me, Sasuke. Do you know any techniques?"

The Uchiha nodded. "Fire."

"Right, I think Ara for him, and as for Sakura… summon Niyi for her."

"Got it! Summoning: Assistants!"

As the other foxes appeared in bursts of smoke, Mandias shook his head. "Must you always say something silly as part of the summon?"

"Why yes, yes I must." Naruto turned to the two foxes thus summoned. The larger one, about the size of a normal fox, had a smooth but unusually large tail. The other was about five inches long and had dichromatic eyes. "Niyi, can you help Sakura here with her other personality? Ara, you'll be working with the duck haired guy. He's got fire attacks."

Ara yipped. "Fire attacks? Yay!"

"And what use are you?" Sasuke grumbled.

"I do biiig gusts of wind!"

Sasuke's eyes widened.

"Ye-ep! Great big boom!"

Niyi trotted over to Sakura. "So, you have another personality? Let's have a look."

Sakura blinked, and was in a field of grass.

Niyi, beside her, barked softly to get her attention. "Welcome to the inside of your mind. I'm impressed, by the way, it's a lovely place. Now, there should be another person here if you have two personalities."

Sakura looked around, before a call came from the distance.

"Hey! Good to see you finally made it, other me."

Sakura walked over, this one moving with more confidence and a jaunty spring in her step.

"Ah, good. Now, the two of you need to work out how to exchange places. In my case, it's as simple as mental effort alone by now – but that's after much practice. Looking at the two of you, I'd say one is power, combat strength and so on and the other is knowledge, control et cetera. Being able to exchange between the two would be a great benefit, and all you would need to do to be well rounded is develop both equally."

The Sakura of perfect control pointed towards a chair near where she'd appeared. "That work?"

The other, 'inner' Sakura nodded. "Er, may I?"

"Go ahead. I'll let you know when we need to swap again."

"After this, you should be able to make it in here more easily. Just ask Naruto to summon me again if you need help." She puffed into smoke.

* * *

Sakura blinked.

Naruto and Sasuke were looking at her, concerned. "It work?"

"Hell yeah! Now, let's see…" she moved over to a tree. Naruto gulped.

"Not that one, it's trapped. No, that one's trapped too. And that… you know what? I'll show you the one that's not."

"Right, let's do this!" Sakura punched the tree, and left a dent. Quite a deep dent, at that.

Sasuke blinked. "Scared now."

"Hehe, so much for being terrible at sparring!"

* * *

"To get the bells, you will need to come at me with intent to kill."

Naruto twitched an eyebrow. "You made us wait three hours for this?"

"Now, now, don't be like that. Go!"

Sasuke shot a small fireball at Kakashi before moving back with Naruto and Sakura, and Ara jumped up from his feet, producing a strong wind with his tail that fanned the fireball to huge size.

Kakashi took a moment to realize that the three were moving as a group rather than separating, before jumping for cover from the fireball.

_Was that a fox I saw?_

He was cut off as he reached the edge of the small clearing and all hell broke loose.

Paint, jam, water, some kind of gunk that got harder when hit, tar, feathers, more paint, treacle, academy glue, high proof alcohol, grass, mud and hundreds of academy-grade kunai and shuriken went everywhere.

* * *

Sakura and Sasuke watched in fascination as Naruto's breathing steadied and his eyes became orange-rimmed.

After a moment, his eyes opened and they saw they had become slit yellow. "He's near the lake. I have a plan – we need to get me into close combat. And I also know how to pass all of us – shadow clones can change shape," he said, downplaying his ability slightly. "So we can just fake a bell or two. So long as we have at least one, he won't be able to tell which of us has no bell."

He stood up, his Sage marks fading instantly, and the three of them set off.

Sasuke thought it over. "If we can drive him to the lakeshore, then we can pincer him against it-"

"Won't work, sorry. Experienced ninja can walk on water. I can too, but that's because of massive control training to try and let me manage the Clone. And it still didn't work."

"Okay. Mind teaching me how?"

"Later, I'll be happy to. Maybe we can try that tomorrow before our sensei arrives. So, I'm thinking we try and do straight taijutsu with me, my clones and Sakura, while Sasuke and Ara blast him if he _does_ go for the lake."

Sasuke nodded. "Got it. Where's Ara?"

Naruto formed the seals again. "Here, now." The fox appeared in the arms of a Shadow Clone. "Take Sasuke to the other side of the lake, disable the traps as you pass. Bring in other clones."

That clone and Sasuke separated from Naruto and Sakura. "Give him two minutes, then we go in."

Kakashi ducked, dodged, and more or less effortlessly dismantled the horde of shadow clones swarming him. Upon seeing one moving in a slightly different manner, he decided to see if it was the real one and grabbed it, twisting that Naruto's arm.

Something moved in the periphery of his vision.

The Naruto in question blurred for an instant, and became Sakura. Who punched him so hard he went flying out over the lake.

"Grand fireball!"

"Wooosh! Yay!"

Then there was fire.

* * *

The three genin candidates looked at the Jonin as he vanished underwater, a hiss arising as it extinguished the wind-boosted fire on his clothes.

Naruto took the opportunity to toss the other two a bell each. "Here."

Sasuke frowned. "You sure at least one of these is real?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah." Kuda's head poked out of his sleeve. "This guy here's a pipe fox, and can meld with my skin to form a mobile tattoo. He nabbed them in the second before Sakura Replaced with me, and bingo."

Ara bounced around. "We got to set things on fire _and _do something useful!"

Sasuke hid a grin. The Uchiha liked the fox's attitude to explosions, and felt that Ara would make a good collaboration partner. His mind filled with an image of beating Itachi by using a collaboration technique – after all, that was one thing his brother lacked, partners.

* * *

"Well, that's a pass – good teamwork. That's all I was looking for."

Naruto snickered. "Nice way of showing it, Sensei. And need any help getting the fluorescent orange paint off?"

Kakashi twitched. "No."

"The treacle?"

"I can handle it myself, thanks."

"The tar? Feathers? Ooh, jam. I didn't think that one would work."

Kakashi snapped his fingers, and suddenly his clothes were unsoiled.

"Wow! How did you do that?" Naruto asked, fascinated.

Kakashi gave an eye smile. "Trade secret. One I don't think you three monsters are ready to learn."

Sakura frowned, and blinked. Her form's posture changed from being poised for movement to a less active state, and she formed a seal. "Kai!"

Kakashi's Henge dispelled and revealed he was still splattered with the ammunition of a dozen traps. He twitched again. "Monsters."

Naruto gave a dazzling smile. "Nice work on the switch, Sakura! That's going to be a real surprise for someone if they think they have us figured out!"

Kakashi coughed, Henge back up. It wavered as Sakura fired another dispel, but remained the same. Sasuke frowned.

"You have more than one Henge up, don't you?"

"Seventeen!" the Jonin replied happily, before rounding on Naruto. "Summons?"

"Accident a year ago, according to the old man Hokage it's the same way Jiraiya of the Sannin got his. They're fine, no destructive tendencies beyond an occasional love of explosions or suchlike. They also helped me deal with my ADHD somewhat, so be glad for that."

The Hatake shuddered. "Understood."

* * *

"Team seven passed."

"Sorry, what?" asked another Jonin. "You passed a team?"

"They got me." Kakashi said, seeming unconcerned. "This totally vindicates my testing method for the last five years, a team of three genin can take on a Jonin and it's ludicrous to suggest otherwise."

One of the Jonin in the room, a Hyuga, frowned, activated his bloodline and sniggered. This action from a Hyuga of all people caused almost as much shock as Kakashi's earlier announcement.

"How many traps did you get hit with?"

"About 20 or so, that Uzumaki kid's horrible to deal with. Especially with that contract of his… he managed to give the Uchiha the assistance of a wind focused summon and somehow turn Haruno into a taijutsu talent."

Now the Hokage blinked. "He's that good at catalyzing other ninja? Well, it appears you have a set of students who will test you."

* * *

"Okay, here guys, I spent last night working them out."

Sakura looked over the small scroll she had been handed. There was a set of complex seals, then an empty line, then a pair of pawprints in blood and the name "Niyi".

"Is this… a summon contract?"

He grinned. "Sorta, it's a branch contract - I think is the name. It's like, you put your name down as a cadet summoner, and you can have some of the foxes sign to your name and hence summon them. And vice versa, which is the real gold."

Sasuke's mind began working fast. "Vice versa? Does that mean what I think it means?"

Naruto's grin became broad enough to light up the clearing. "It means that with these, all it takes is a couple minutes of planning and you can be summoned wherever you want!"

Sakura looked suddenly upset. "But, I don't have the chakra to-"

"Smart-you doesn't, yet, but strong-you does."

She thought for a moment, then smiled too. "That means that if things go horribly wrong, we could just be summoned straight to the hospital! Or – or we could be summoned out of a trap, or as reinforcements against an enemy who doesn't expect us, or…"

Naruto held up a hand. "I've got a warning, though. The way I got my summon contract was by performing the summoning technique with a big splash of chakra and no contract myself. So I got sent to the realm of the most appropriate animal. If either of you want to try the same, it has to be before you sign this cadet contract. The old fox's fine with people holding a cadet fox contract as well as another, but he's only willing to extend that to a few people. You really impressed him with your potential."

Sasuke considered. "Right. I'll give it a go. Pass me the contract, and get Ara to summon me back if I take too long."

Naruto passed over the scroll, then snapped his fingers. "If you do end up somewhere, try and find out where you are in the summon lands. The toads of Mount Myoboku have a long distance travel well that leads here, so that's a good place to orient yourself on."

The Uchiha, at Naruto's direction, took a soldier pill for a quick chakra boost in case he didn't have enough, went through the pattern of summoning, and dissolved in a puff of smoke.

Naruto grinned. "Well, that worked!"

At that moment Kakashi strolled in. "Hi, sorry I'm late, I was doing my laundry and the machine clogged."

"Paint, perhaps, sensei?"

"None of your lip, Naruto. Now – where's the other one?"

Sakura smiled. "He's off getting a summon contract! Awesome, isn't he?"

Naruto sighed. "Ah well, at least I get partial credit for showing him how to do that…"

Kakashi twitched. This genin team was starting to look like a potential Three Sannin all over again, which would mean more work.

"Well, that's nice. Our first mission is going to be a rescue mission."

"Wow, that's awesome!" Naruto shouted.

"Yes, we need to rescue a family from boredom by babysitting."

"I withdraw my awesome comment."

* * *

Mandias sat on his haunches in the forest claimed by the fox summons. He was perfectly centred. He was communing with nature on a fundamental level.

He was surprised to notice a large bird flying towards him.

Opening his eyes, he saw the hawk – clearly a large summon clan member – flying gently down towards him. After a few more seconds in which he got up and stretched, it alighted on a branch.

"Sage of the Foxes. I am Tadewi, messenger of the Hawk Tribe. A young human bearing a cadet contract of your clan has appeared in our midst, seeking our might to join his own. Do you have an explanation?"

"I do. The boy is an ally of our newest summoner, and performed the summon with no contract at all to discover what he might be best suited for. He would be a good choice – his chakra is strong, and while it bears a tint of black, that tint is something he is aware of and will likely seek to overcome. He bears fire and lightning, and his eyes will be sharp when he can fully use them."

"Understood. We will not look on his petition with disfavour. You have no problem in his possessing a cadet contract of yours and a true contract of ours?"

"I do not."

"Then we will have no problem with the situation either." Tadewi spread his wings. "Live long and well, Sage."

* * *

Naruto sighed. "D ranks. I hate D ranks."

"We know, Naruto. One of your clones mentions it every few minutes."

He sighed, and picked out yet another weed from the ground. It wasn't bad as D ranks went, but it _was_ incredibly boring. He hadn't managed to make time to see about what Mandias called the 'emergency strength training plan', and his sudden lack of progress felt horrible. Oh, he was improving, just nowhere near as fast as he had on the glorious night he learned the Shadow Clone. And as per the rules of the Foxes, he couldn't consider it mastered – couldn't move on to learning something else – unless he could do it, under stress, without more than at most one seal. Mandias had mentioned how, once the Shadow Clone was down, he could start learning several things at once using their memory return capacity.

Sasuke had it slightly easier, his summons insisting instead that he make modifications to his techniques to improve their range and travel speed, even at the cost of power. Since that made it plausible he could rain down destruction from the heavens once he built his chakra enough to summon a hawk that could carry him, he wasn't arguing with them.

"Finally!" his clones roared as the last dozen weeds were ripped out. With an effort of will, he dispersed them by groups and evaluated their memories. Wow, he would certainly be able to tell what a garden looked like if he ever needed to.

He glanced between the grubby Sakura and the annoyed Sasuke.

"C rank?"

"C rank."

* * *

"Well, I do have a mission to the land of Wave. It's an escort mission."

Naruto considered for a moment. "This is just going to be an awful lot of walking, right?"

Sasuke snorted. "We might have to fight, but more or less yeah. At least it's less boring."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Boring, eh? Well, if boredom is your concern then when we get back to D ranks I'll make them more interesting…"

"You better keep to that. Okay, we'll take it!"

Tazuna walked in. "Why – hic - are all ninja so short?"

The Third frowned. "Short?"

"Yeah. There's the three brats here, and then there's you, who's so old that the same thing applies. The only ninja I've seen are either really young or really old."

"That, mister Tazuna, is because the tall ones are too stealthy to see."

Tazuna looked around. "Who said that?"

Sakura bent over to the boys. "How drunk _is_ he?"

Naruto gave a sniff. "I'd say… two and a half out of three sheets to the wind."

* * *

Tazuna looked around at the half-dozen other images of him walking along the path. "This feels creepy…"

Another Tazuna nodded, and a third added, "That's just what I was going to say."

Naruto spoke up. "It's so nobody knows which one is the real you," he said, looking at yet another Tazuna-clone.

Another grumbled something about brats not paying attention to people when they talk.

As the small group walked past a certain puddle, all but one of the Tazunas flickered slightly. When the Demon Brothers emerged from the puddle, they immediately charged for that one, wrapping up Kakashi and Naruto in their chains as they went.

As soon as they reached the "real" Tazuna, he smirked and punched Meizu hard enough to knock him out. The images all vanished to show that the real Tazuna was in fact on the other side of the group inside a clone of himself, and that Sakura had been wearing a Transformation illusion.

Kakashi stepped out of the trees unscathed and Naruto simply shapeshifted himself into a brick to drop out of the coils. Sasuke stood there impassively for a second, before a hawk dropped from the sky and raked across Gozu's scalp. The Uchiha took advantage of the distraction caused by his Summon to kick the remaining Demon Brother in the… well, let's just say he was in male pain.

"So, sensei, looks like they were after the bridge guy after all." Naruto muttered from the ground, as a brick. He shifted back a second or so later and grinned. "Take that, heh."

"How the hell did you do that?"

"Uhh… ninjutsu? Magic? Alchemy? At least one of the above? How the hell did those guys turn into water without a bloodline?"

"Point."

* * *

"Naruto! How could you possibly hurt this little bunny! What were you thinking?"

Naruto considered. "Well, at first I was thinking, "Suspicious noise!" but after I saw it was a rabbit, my thought sort of changed to "Lunch!"

"Lunch? That's cruel!"

"Fox."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "You have a point. Where did you get it from?"

Naruto took his attention off the rabbit. "Eh?"

"What you say is pointless. Therefore, if you have a point, you took it from somewhere."

"Did you actually make a joke? Seriously, I can't tell…"

A harsh cry came from above. Sasuke sprang into action. "Down!"

A huge sword went flying overhead, embedding itself into a tree.

* * *

"Leave me and go!" Kakashi shouted desperately from inside the water prison. "Get the client out of here!"

Naruto shook his head. "No way I'm going to do that! There's not a thing that could make me abandon a teammate! Flibbertigibbet! I'm a clone!"

Zabuza's eyes widened. "What?"

Snapping round to the seaward side of the battlefield, he saw someone – Naruto – standing on the water. He was bent down, sticking his bloody hand in the sea. And grinning.

A tense second went by, and then something looped around Zabuza's ankles and dragged him down. He broke the grip, but lost the Water Prison as he half-fell.

On the shoreline, the same hawk from before disrupted the Water Clone Zabuza had left, and Sasuke smiled. "They never think to look up…"

Kakashi steadied himself on the water, and spotted a slim, streamlined fox disappear from below the water in a cloud of bubbles.

Naruto himself now ran in, creating a dozen clones on the move.

One of them made a face at Zabuza, and another started copying his movements.

Zabuza casually tossed a handful of kunai, performed a quick Water technique that shielded him from the onrushing clones, and began working up a much more impressive attack on Kakashi.

Sadly for him, Kakashi had developed his four non-affinity elements to the point they could nearly match his Lightning (otherwise what was the point copying so many techniques?) and hence knew where he was going with the Water Dragon already.

So outran him on it.

Zabuza had just enough time to be monumentally ticked off before he was blasted back by a massive, majestic… water dragon… okay, it's a fancy shaped hose blast. But it's a nice looking fancy shaped hose blast.

"Hey, sensei, that was pretty neat! Is there one of those for other elements?"

Predictably, Naruto loved it.

"Yes, there is. But I haven't seen the Wind Dragon used before, and the Water version's actually fairly poor as they go. Far, far too many hand seals."

Naruto shrugged. "I have hordes of shadow clones, I could set fifty performing it at once and get at least a few of them off. And it's just cool."

Sakura marched over to the concussed Zabuza. "Right, now who are you working for?"

A pair of needles hit Zabuza on the neck, and he stopped moving completely. A masked ninja dropped from the trees, and explained how he was a hunter ninja, and so it was perfectly reasonable for him to be using his amazing talents in hunting down a missing nin, but for him to have got his first break in positively years due to a team of genin.

Naruto raised his hand from where he sat on the shore. "Mister Hunter-nin, if that's true, then why isn't he dead?"

The hunter nin looked down at Zabuza. "He looks dead to me."

"Yeah, but his chakra's still here and stuff. Why did you use those little needles if they might not work properly?"

Haku bent down next to Zabuza. "Okay, there's a very good explanation for that." With a flicker of speed, both Swordsman and Hunter vanished.

Naruto stayed staring at where they'd vanished from as Kakashi started banging his head into a tree. "Stupid, stupid…"

Sasuke noticed he hadn't moved for almost a minute. "Er, Naruto?"

"Sssh, I might miss the explanation."

* * *

"Why bother fighting Gato? You'll lose. No one can beat Gato."

Naruto pondered for a moment. "Sensei? Do you have a bingo book with you? Anyone in there who fits the description of this Gato?"

Kakashi flipped through. "Nobody by that name, but there are a few it might be… so, this Gato, a tall woman in her mid twenties with long blonde hair?"

Inari blinked. "No, he's a short man with sunglasses."

"Hmm. What's his signature ninjutsu? Does he use genjutsu? Is he a taijutsu master?"

"He's got lots of men working for him!"

Naruto frowned. "Now, see, I don't see how that really works as a credible threat. I mean, Sasuke can make massive blasts of fire, Sakura can practically level trees with a punch and I can make an army with a single handseal – and I don't know what Sensei can do when he's concentrating, but that's because he's never really had to."

"It doesn't matter, there's no such thing as heroes."

Kakashi quirked an eyebrow. "Over half the people I know count as heroes in some way or other."

"You'll just die, there's no point-"

Sasuke had had enough. "Look, kid, you have a parent left. That makes you better off than three quarters of our team, stop being so depressed."

"But I-"

Sakura turned to Tazuna, having had an idea. "Mister Tazuna, how old are you?"

"I'm about fifty-six, why?"

"Did your parents ever tell you about the great plains of Fire Country?"

"Come to think of it, yeah, though I don't know what they meant. It's always been forest there."

Kakashi joined the conversation again. "The forest's barely a year or two older than you. Harashima Senju made it himself, in one gargantuan technique. Then, to show off, he converted some of it into low cost, high quality housing for an entire village."

The Wave citizens could only gape.

"The Hokage you saw in Konoha was trained by Harashima Senju himself. We're in a time of legends still, kid."

Naruto grinned. "And we're going to join them!"

* * *

Sasuke blinked.

His eyes shone red. "Well, it worked." And now he had a whole other set of disturbing memories to work with, but time had dulled the ache. He could analyze those moments, burned into his memory with the sharingan, and see things that were… off. Wrong.

Itachi had been upset, hiding it behind feigned madness for some reason.

Some of the dead had been killed by Itachi's sword, but others – all the young, some of the old, and a few of the mature clan members – were dead by a different weapon. In fact, it looked like a Kama had done it, as the cuts were wider and shallower.

And finally, he was still alive. By any measure, a sharingan activating at eight was impressive, and more of a "test of capacity" than some three year old child. But he had been left alive and had his memory of his sharingan blocked.

Why? If he was to be a greater challenge later, then why block the sharingan? None of it made sense.

Niyi flicked her tail. "That did it, then? The memory block is down?"

Sasuke nodded.

"Right. If you have any further problems with it, get Naruto or Sakura to summon me." The fox vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Ah, good." Kakashi said. "Now, time for intensive training in how to use a Sharingan! Naruto, Sakura, keep up the intensive training in whatever you're doing. Ten hours a day, minimum. Naruto, that's per clone."

Sakura moaned, and began the chakra capacity building exercise again. "Remember when he was lazy?"

Naruto nodded, and summoned Mandias. "Hey, old guy, I think we need to go for that red power source you mentioned."

"You sure?"

"Isolated islands, hundred or more miles from any hidden village, total experienced ninja in the vicinity single digits. Hey, it might even scare them off."

"Fair enough. Send a clone to warn your Sensei, though."

* * *

Sakura carefully balanced on the side of the tree. She was having to balance a leaf at the same time, Kakashi's idea being that if she exerted her chakra in her "finesse" state for long enough to exhaust it, then switched to the other and back, she could manage constant chakra training. Control in "strength", and capacity in the other aspect.

Then a volcano of power blew her off the tree entirely.

* * *

"Good, good, now this is as much as your aura can extend to without energy bleed!" Mandias shouted into the gale of power. "If you need to use more power, it needs to be compressed down so that it becomes an extension of your body!"

Slowly, the aura of red youkai surrounding Naruto darkened and shrank, forming a layer an inch deep over his skin. Mandias watched it with a weather eye. Any moment now…

With a ripple, the chakra shroud developed features. Ears, claws, and a single lashing red tail.

Naruto gradually stabilized the cloak, then stood back up again, face scrunched with the effort of will in sustaining it.

"Very good, Naruto. Keep that up for as long as you can. From now on, the power called doesn't actually change the difficulty nearly as fast – as you draw more of Millie's chakra, it becomes self stabilizing. Form follows form."

"This tail feels really, really freaky. I mean, it's almost controllable, but not quite."

Mandias considered. "Training! Two hundred and fifty five shadow clones, one tail from each of them! That ought to be almost all of Millie's power at once, spread over 256 different clones. Then get them sparring!"

Sakura stomped over to the area Naruto was training in. "Okay, Naruto! You better have a really good explanation… for...?"

She saw a good few hundred clones, each cloaked in what felt to her bookworm side like pure chakra – with a tail? – sparring and demolishing trees. It didn't escape her attention that they were sustaining hits without dispelling.

* * *

"Master Zabuza, what should we do?"

Zabuza shivered. That was the unmistakeable feeling of Youkai on the edge of perception.

"We are leaving, as soon as possible."

Abruptly the feeling got about two hundred times stronger.

"In fact, sooner. I need you to carry me to somewhere outside the country. Leave a note for Gato, three explosive tags."

* * *

Kakashi winced. Well, so much for stealth. Though there was something to be said for sheer brute force, especially in a remote location like this.

* * *

"Now, now, Naruto, I told you that careful fine manipulation is the best way to gain dexterity."

"Somehow, using enough power to level a small country on building a bridge seems just… wrong, though, old guy." A joist wobbled and almost fell, but the tail Naruto was using adjusted itself and stabilized the long beam of wood. The rest of the bridge workers tried to ignore the strangeness of their "crane".

"Control is fundamental, and it's no good to you if you damage your allies as much as your enemies."

* * *

"Er, K-kiba, it might be a bad idea for you to, er…"

With a twang, a rope wrapped around Kiba's leg and sent him soaring into the air.

Kurenai sighed. "Was that a trap? And Hinata, you really should have warned poor Kiba sooner."

"I… I didn't want to impose, sensei."

Shino dissolved into a cloud of bugs, revealing that him to be a clone, as a spray of fluorescent pink paint jetted from what had seemed an innocuous bush.

Kurenai pursed her lips. More than one, it seemed the area was risky. "Hinata. Where are the closest traps?"

"Byakugan! Er… maybe we should stop moving now, sensei."

"That many? Okay, point out the safest path."

Hinata concentrated, then frowned. "I- can't see one. At all. Not even a way back."

Kurenai spun in place. "Does that even make sense?"

Shino shook his head. "I do not understand it either. It seems training ground seven has recently been used for something impressive."

"What do we do now?"

After a pause, Shino raised a hand. "Call for help?"

A scream dopplered out of the sky, and Kiba landed with a splash in the nearby lake.

* * *

"Well, that was anticlimactic."

"Speak for yourself, sensei. Sasuke regained his Sharingan, Sakura's easily doubled her chakra reserves and got her aspect switching down to an art, and I stabilized the two tail form of my Chakra Cloak."

"Yes, I was meaning to ask about that. Why were you, well, not berserk?"

Naruto tapped his palm, and took three pamphlets that Kuda passed him. "Here. Sakura, Sasuke, you may as well find out too."

Kakashi took one and opened it. "The Kyuubi was under a Sharingan Genjutsu? Part of the Fox contract? Female? Uchiha Madara is still alive? What the hell?"

"Uchiha Madara?" Sasuke asked, suddenly intense.

Kakashi formed a simple illusion in the air, an image of one of the two Founders of Konoha when he had had his last portrait done, complete with traditional Uchiha battle armour and weapons.

Sasuke's hands clenched so hard they destroyed the pamphlet he held. That man was holding a Kama. That man had faked his death decades ago. That man had attacked the village on multiple occasions. That man was far more likely to have destroyed his own clan – murdered children in their beds, old men and women, civilians… than his pacifist older brother.

That Man would pay.

Oh, and apparently Naruto held the Kyuubi. Whatever, apparently she wasn't evil anymore, and if Madara was behind any of this at all then he could hardly talk.

Sakura nodded to herself. Yep, that made sense. But if he was a container, then was he the only one there'd been or not? No, it couldn't be. All the other Bijuu were mentioned as being sealed in someone or other repeatedly… and, come to think of it, the battle at the Valley of the End had ended with something vague being done to the Kyuubi by the First's wife, Mito Senju.

Sakura's endless knowledge of random trivia threw up a correspondence. Mito Senju, neé _Uzumaki_. Okay, that was interesting. Hadn't Mandias said Naruto had a small amount of non human Chakra? Something to research.

* * *

"The demon is escaping! Run for your lives!"

Kakashi looked up from his book. "Actually, it looks rather more like the Jinchuuriki is using a slightly ludicrous amount of power to plow your field."

The farmer stopped his headlong panic, and turned, trembling.

Naruto waved back cheerily, the two tails he was sustaining continuing to carve long furrows in the ground.

* * *

"I wish to enter my team into the exams."

Iruka blinked. "Are you sure they're ready?"

Kakashi shook his head. "They're actually, if anything, too late. Sakura's resolved that split personality of hers into a combat boost, giving her chuunin level taijutsu and probably pretty good illusion abilities as well if her clones are anything to go by. Sasuke's got his Sharingan, and a small repertoire of very basic techniques from all five elements – camping stuff, basically – as well as pretty good elemental techniques in fire. As for Naruto… well, did you know that shadow clones of a jinchuuriki can form and stabilize a chakra cloak?"

The other Jonin carefully noted to tell their students to stay away from Team Seven.

* * *

"Morning, sand ninja." Sakura commented, as she walked past. "Tell me, were you planning on holding the grandson of the head of your allied village hostage, or did it just happen?"

"Kankuro, Temari. Stop making a scene." Gaara said from his perch.

As Kankuro gasped and flinched away from his brother, Naruto ambled over. "You seem somehow similar to me… you have a summon contract?"

Gaara blinked. "I do not."

"Oh, they're really cool! You do this string of hand seals, channel a good amount of chakra, bite your thumb, and slap it on the ground!"

Naruto demonstrated, and with a poof of smoke Aya appeared. "Morning! Ooh, he looks fun! Are we going to fight him? Or not?"

"Not today, Aya. I was just demonstrating."

Gaara silently worked the handseals, bit his thumb – getting a good deal of sand as well, but some blood – and slapped down his hand.

And vanished.

Temari gaped. "Did… did you just make Gaara self destruct?"

Naruto grinned. "Nope! And he should be back in a few seconds."

With a_ bamf_, Gaara reappeared. He seemed exactly the same as he had before, except for a small tanuki on his shoulder.

He was stroking it.

"The sand… doesn't kill it." His voice was wondering. "Not like the puppy… or the fish… or the cat… or Temari's boyfriend…" He turned his eyes to her. "Sorry about that, by the way. He seemed to slap you on the shoulder, and I just saw yellow. Then red. Lots of red. Then I left the room, because there really was rather a lot of blood on the walls."

"S…sure." Temari stuttered.

"We are going back to our hotel room to wait for the exams to start. And I am going to see what other racoons and racoon dogs I can summon. Thank you…?"

Naruto grinned. "Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage!"

* * *

Hmm… first test is if you can answer those questions, is it? Right. _"Kuda"_, Naruto subvocalized, _"Can you manage to copy Hinata's paper from my neck?"_

_I can read it from there, I'll let you know what she writes._

"_Neat."_

* * *

"Okay. Kaen, Niyi, Aya, head on to the centre of the forest. When I summon Kaen, you two summon us there."

Kaen nodded for all of them. "Understood." The larger fox loped off into the forest, followed by Niyi and Aya.

* * *

"Oh, okay. So you're an infiltration specialist. Well, take this! Summoning: speedster!"

Ichimaru puffed into reality. "Morning. Ooh, a fight. Buto."

The rain genin flinched as a nip drew blood from his lower arm. He hadn't even seen the silvery fox move!

"Eh, I'm bored. Buto Rejin."

"Gaaah! Get it off me! Get it off me!"

Sakura and Sasuke watched as one of the Fox Summons savaged their enemy at several hundred strikes a second, apparently having time between the attacks to lean back and relax if the flickering, hazy image they were getting was any indication.

Eventually the Rain Genin managed to run out of the range of Buto Rejin entirely, and Ichimaru dispersed. Naruto sent Kori after him to keep an eye out, and returned to concentrating on moving through the forest.

* * *

Naruto grinned in satisfaction as the giant snake rained down around him. Nothing like two tails of chakra cloak to give anything a severe case of indigestion.

Right, report time. "Kori," he asked, summoning the fox, "Did you get anything from the Rain team?"

"Yes." The illusion master flicked his tailtip, and the cloaking illusions on two scrolls dropped. "One scroll that seems to be the opposite of the one you had – Earth to Heaven – and another one I can't open."

"Good." Naruto took the scrolls from his summon. "Right, time to cheat. Kaen!"

The fire fox appeared in a puff of smoke, and then all three in the clearing vanished.

* * *

"Ku ku ku… ah, see here, the prey gives the predator something to-"

Sakura and Sasuke disappeared in clouds of smoke.

The Sannin frowned. "Damn."

* * *

"Okay, Naruto, how the hell did you manage to complete the Forest of Death in an hour and a half?"

"Reverse summoning! Now, Sakura, any idea what this is?"

Sakura switched aspects to her knowledge side, and took a look. "It reminds me of those summon contracts you gave us, actually… but it's a lot bigger… hang on a sec. Naruto, mind letting me see the main Fox contract?"

A quick summon later, and Sakura and Lani were comparing the two huge scrolls. "Yes, I see what you mean. This is similar to our own core summon contract, but it's aligned differently. Kori, where was this?"

"In a pack, I think it might actually have been forgotten in there."

"Well, if we want to find out what it is… Sakura, you're the only one without a master contract. Want to give it a go?"

Sakura blinked, and clenched her fists. "Yeah!"

She slashed her blood across the prepared channel at the base of the scroll, and a sleek otter appeared in the room.

"Woo, that's a rush. Oh, hello. I see someone finally bothered to try our contract again."

Sasuke nodded to himself. "Creatures of two worlds, land and water… appropriate."

* * *

Naruto looked around. Several teams had made it through. One sand team, including the new Raccoon summoner, and one Sound team. The other five teams were all Konoha… that was neat. Clearly the home team advantage was strong.

Either that or Konoha's genin were freaky strong. Most of the ninja in the forest were equipped with fairly standard attacks, whereas every Konoha nin had something clan based or personal that was hard to beat.

Except for that Kabuto guy… who just gave up. Again. Man, he sucked.

* * *

Naruto vs. Yoroi Akado.

"Sooo… how much chakra can you drain?"

"At least as much as a strong Jonin!" Yoroi boasted, holding Naruto's arm.

"Right." Naruto snickered. "And the more chakra the target's using, the faster it drains?"

"Yes! I can shut down any technique you try to pull. Actually, I'm surprised you've not run out of chakra already."

Naruto pulled on his Initial Jinchuuriki state, and Yoroi promptly collapsed to the floor twitching.

"Okay, that was just sad."

* * *

Ino vs. Kankuro.

Ino threw the special hand seal for Yamanaka techniques, and sent a possession attack at her opponent.

As soon as it hit, the bundle of bandages burst open, and Kankuro rolled out. "Ha! You only possessed my puppet! My… combat puppet… with all my weapons… er, help?"

Temari glanced at the slumped body of Ino. "Can you even possess a puppet?"

"Apparently." Gaara muttered.

* * *

Sasuke vs. Shikamaru.

Sasuke blinked to rest his watering eyes. Shikamaru was just annoying! He barely moved, yet the Uchiha was being strained keeping track of the shadow possession that was flicking all over the place.

Then he had an idea, and began working on one of his new camping techniques. Among the most minor of Jutsu, this was a simple lightning technique that allowed you to read at night. But Sasuke decided to take a leaf out of Naruto's book, and overloaded it thirty or so times.

The resultant flare of light was bright enough to banish most of the shadows in the arena – and weaken the Nara's own mutable shadow – so Sasuke began to push the advantage thus granted.

The end came quickly. By summoning a pair of wind-aligned hawks – drawing the eye of everyone in the room – and using their powerful wings to augment his Phoenix Flower, Sasuke managed to catch Shikamaru in a ring of fire.

Since his shadow couldn't cross the flames themselves, Shikamaru found himself checkmated, and gave up gracefully.

* * *

Gaara vs. Shino.

The two stared at one another.

Gaara spoke first, after a good few minutes of silence. "I use sand. It acts as an ultimate defence and has essentially never been breached."

Shino considered. "I use insects. They allow me to use clones extremely hard to distinguish from the normal me, and let me drain chakra at range."

Gaara nodded. "I have more chakra than most ninja below Kage, so draining me would be an exercise in futility. In addition, were I to catch a clone in my sand I could crush it and destroy the insects. Eventually you would run out of them, leaving you vulnerable."

Shino took a windmill shuriken from a coat pocket, and threw it with a flourish. It hit the sand defence and bounced away. Shino nodded to himself. "Then this will be a battle of wills."

The two continued staring. Fifteen minutes after their match started, Shino turned away. "I concede."

* * *

Misumi vs. Hinata.

The older Konoha-nin pounced as soon as the battle began, wrapping himself around Hinata. "Got you now! Give up or…" he trailed off.

Hinata's eyes flashed into the Byakugan. "You are completely within the range of my divination!"

Hinata performed the only stage of the Kaiten she had learned thus far, blasting Misumi with chakra from every part of her body at once and locking him up completely.

She pulled at her bonds for a moment. "Er, proctor… does this mean I win? He's sort of… unconscious."

"Yeah, we'll go with that. Hinata wins. Hey, Gai! Can you come down and… well… pry this genin off her?"

"Yosh!"

* * *

Neji vs. Kin.

Hinata glanced between the two ninja. "Sensei… is it me, or do those two look really alike?"

Kurenai blinked, and paid closer attention. "They really do."

Then she winced. "Ouch. Not much point being an illusionist against a Hyuga."

"Neji wins!"

* * *

Lee vs. Kiba.

"GatsugaaAAARGH!" SLAM

Thud.

Kurenai winced again. "That boy… he's strong, fast and skilled, as well as actually nice, but he needs to learn restraint."

"Yosh! Lee! You have defeated another Taijutsu focused opponent!"

"Gai-sensei!"

Everyone in the Konoha contingent looked away.

Temari glanced around her at the flinching ninja. "What's the problem-GAH!"

Gaara's sand formed a shield to protect him from the Sunset of Youth.

* * *

Dosu vs. Temari.

Temari quirked an eyebrow. "Sound nin? Right, goodbye. Breakthrough!"

Dosu's ability required getting close to his opponent, and it wasn't much of a prospect against a Suna wind mistress. He, like Kiba, was quickly introduced to the wall.

* * *

Zaku vs. Tenten.

Tenten slammed back into the wall from one of Zaku's attacks, and winced.

The sound genin crowed. "No ranged attack works on me! I can blow away all your attacks!" He gestured to the sea of weapons all across the floor.

The Konoha genin smiled grimly. "So, tell me. Zaku… do you have enough arms?" She waved her fingers, shaking out the wires attached to them, and _yanked._

Zaku noticed that all her weapons were now flying at him, from every direction. "Well, fu-"

Crash!

"Winner, Tenten! And someone get a medic!"

* * *

Sakura vs. Choji

Sakura jumped lightly onto the floor, and switched to her bookish aspect. A few clones to allow her to get close, then switch when she was in range and land a hit. Should work. And if it didn't… well, she had Tagg and the other otters she'd managed to summon.

Choji turned to Asuma. "She looks scary now… can I just not fight?"

Asuma sighed. "Okay, fine, go ahead. At least Ino made it to the finals."

Kakashi blinked. "That was anticlimactic. Wait, hang on…" He looked at the genin who would be in the Chunin exams. _Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke_, Temari, Gaara, _Neji, Lee, Tenten_, Ino, Hinata.

Gai had noticed it too. "My eternal rival! Shall we make it a challenge to see which of our youthful genin get promoted? If one of us manages a clean sweep, then we will have trained a team similar to the Three Sannin!"

* * *

The proctor held up a board with the matches for the next month. Naruto v. Neji, Tenten v Temari, Sakura v Ino, Lee v Hinata, Sasuke v Gaara.

Then the winners of the first two matches would fight (as would the winners of the last two), then the winner of the first block and of the third first round match, then the final.

* * *

"Sasuke, I'll train you. Sakura, it might be better if you worked with Ebisu here to refine your low and mid level techniques, to better use your great control. Naruto… sorry, but everyone I could find is occupied except Kurenai, and I don't think you're cut out to be an illusionist."

"Nah, that's fine, I'll just ask Mandias if I can't find anyone else."

* * *

"So you're the Kyuubi container, huh. How about I teach you something really impressive?"

Naruto looked at the old toad summoner, remembering that day last year when he'd first seen the man. "Sure, go ahead."

"Now, watch this! Summoning!" A toad appeared in a cloud of smoke.

Naruto waited. "That's it? Didn't you ask the old man about me?"

"What do you mean?"

The boy rolled his eyes, and sat down. Jiraiya gasped in shock as he felt the familiar feel of Sage Chakra. "Wait! What are-"

"Summoning: beat this!"

Mandias stretched as the smoke cleared. "Oh, hello again, Naruto. And who's this?"

Jiraira was frozen, his face twitching as his mind rebooted.

The kid just used SAGE chakra? Perfectly? And he already has a summon contract. Just brilliant.

"Okay, how the hell can you mould nature energy that well?"

Naruto frowned. "It's not perfect… I mean, I can't keep it when I move, you know…"

Mandias slipped his tail into Naruto' pocket, and pulled out one of the pamphlets. "Here, this might help."

Jiraiya took it. "Impressive… but can you access the Kyuubi's chakra yet?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow, and entered one tailed chakra cloak.

"Oh. Er… ever heard of the Rasengan?"

"Oh, wow, something actually new! Teach me!"

* * *

"Morning, Hinata! Ready to head over to the stadium?"

Hinata nodded, not trusting her voice.

"Okay! Well, I may as well offer you a lift. But to pay me back, you better do well, you hear?"

Naruto summoned Kaen and clambered onto his back. "Come on, he's really fast!"

* * *

Neji spun into the Hyuuga ultimate defence, the Kaiten, shedding the incoming attack and popping the clones.

Naruto bit his thumb and slapped it on the ground. "Summoning: death from below!"

With a grinding roar, an enormous pair of jaws burst from the ground around his opponent and closed around Neji in his entirety, before disappearing back into the ground.

The proctor blinked. "Is… is he dead?"

Naruto shook his head. "Give it a minute."

The great red maw burst from the ground again, and its' eyes crossed.

With a _ptui_ sound, Neji was spat out of the fox's mouth before it dispersed, and began shivering in place.

Genma walked over to the Branch Hyuuga. "Are you…okay?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

* * *

Temari hid behind a tree. This seemed so wrong somehow…

On the other side, Tenten fired out half a dozen explosive-tagged-kunai from her crater, gradually digging a trench towards the Suna wind mistress. Temari had found out early on that her wind couldn't actually reach the inside of the craters, and Tenten was using them ruthlessly to close in.

"Raising twin dragons!"

Temari lunged out from behind the tree. At last the other kunoichi had made a mistake! That move's long set up time would let her-

"Just kidding!"

Temari met a shower of kunai coming the other way, one of which exploded close enough to her fan to damage the paper.

Temari rolled out of the way of a follow up salvo of three kunai, twelve shuriken and a scythe (Tenten winced on seeing it. She thought that was one of the small weapons scrolls) and hurriedly conceded.

* * *

Ino ran for her life. Sakura's otter summon, Tagg, was sending a javelin her way every time she tried to take a stance facing Sakura for handseals, and with the occasional kunai being sent her way by Sakura herself, it was getting tiring.

Wait! She could possess the summon!

Sakura watched as Tagg ran straight into the mental attack, then lazily dismissed the summoning technique.

Ino's body slowly collapsed.

There was a pause.

Sakura shouted up into the stands. "Excuse me, mister Yamanaka? I have a few questions about your family techniques."

* * *

"So her mind returns to her body at walking pace with the basic move. Brilliant. I think summons might actually be in another dimension or something. Hang on a sec…" Sakura threw the summon handseals again. "Lutra, take this girl's body back when I dismiss you, that ought to let her get back fine. Explain things to her if she's still possessing Tagg. Keep a hold of her until I summon you again."

"As you say, Sakura." The otter bowed, and ran off.

Lutra vanished, taking Ino's body with her.

The procter looked around for a moment. "Er… winner, Sakura?"

Sakura nodded absently, explaining her plan to Inoichi. "I'll summon Lutra back with her in ten minutes or so."

* * *

Hinata stared at Lee. She could do this. She had to, but… if this boy was her cousin's rival, then could she possibly beat him?

Naruto's voice came from the crowd. "Hey, Hinata! You better do something awesome, remember!"

Awesome? Okay, she could handle that. Especially if it was _Naruto _asking. Right, this guy was much stronger than her, so she needed to come up with a way to match that. The normal way the Gentle Fist worked was very wasteful of chakra, as each blast fired was lost whether it hit or not. Perhaps she could make some kind of chakra skin over her hands that only fired chakra when it hit the enemy? Then she could use more chakra on making herself faster.

So… what to call it?

"Gentle step: twin lion fists!"

Hiashi dropped his milkshake.

Lee blinked.

Hinata gave her new technique a careful look over, then smiled. "I… think I like this. Shall we?"

Lee nodded, and charged.

* * *

Hinata eventually lost the fight, but it took Lee using the second gate to give him the speed to bypass her swinging fists.

Hiashi quirked an eyebrow, having had time to recover his composure. That had been strange.

* * *

"Sasuke Uchiha, please report to the stadium. Seriously, this is getting silly."

Naruto's patience ran out. "Aya! Summon Sasuke for me, will you?"

"Right-o, hee!"

* * *

Kakashi reiterated his warning about the Chidori. "Now, you haven't got enough chakra to use it more than a few times a day. Since you mentioned your summons and their love of long range attacks, you might want to modify it as much as you can – I'll work with you on shape transformation – but for now, use it as a last resort as it uses far too much chakra. Stick to the lesser lightning and fire attacks. A good combo to use is-"

Sasuke vanished in a puff of smoke.

Kakashi's eye widened. "Damn."

* * *

Sasuke materialized on the balcony. "What is it?"

Naruto pointed. "You're five minutes late to your match. Sakura, Lee, Tenten and I won, by the way."

Sasuke dove into the arena.

* * *

"Lightning lance!" Sasuke's electric attack punched through Gaara's sand, but dissipated as it did so. Gaara replied with a hail of sand shuriken and pellets.

"Electric Aura Armour!" The thin curtain of electricity didn't protect against the impacts from the sand, but it did overwhelm what of Gaara's chakra was in the tiny sand pellets and stop them from staying animate.

The crowd _ooh_ed and _aah_ed as the lightning attacks speared across the stadium. Naruto grinned, watching as Sasuke fired out a Grand Fireball and had Aya enhance it, fusing some of the sand into glass, before following up with a volley of lightning lances that weren't diffused by the glass as they were the sand. One of them made it through and nicked Gaara's skin.

"My… blood?" Gaara sounded confused. Then flipped a few handseals and slapped his hands on the floor.

Choji stared. "Did he just summon… Totoro?"

The large tanuki fired out a water attack at Sasuke, intercepting his follow-up fireball volley. Aya blocked the water bullet before it hit Sasuke, and the Uchiha dropped a lightning lance into the thin misting of water - which boosted it in the same way wind boosts fire.

Totoro was violently dispersed by the enhanced electric attack, and Sasuke swallowed a soldier pill, before pushing a big chunk of his chakra into a large summoning.

Kakashi flickered into the stadium to catch sight of his student finally summoning a hawk large enough to fly on. Though there was something about it…

"Ooh, neat." Lutra commented from the balcony, having asked to stay to watch the rest of the finals. "That's a Thunder Bird."

"Does that mean what I think it means?"

Sasuke's summon spat a lightning bolt at Gaara.

Then, as Gaara began to pull a lot of his own chakra for a bigger summon, a wide area sleep illusion pulsed out across the crowd.

* * *

Sakura rushed over to Naruto, checking he was still awake, and glanced around for trouble. "I think we're being invaded! They're using the exam as a cover!"

Naruto nodded. "Makes sense. Hey, Sasuke! Head over somewhere safe and draw Gaara off, then get a good look for me, and I'll see what I can do!"

Sasuke banked overhead on his Thunder Bird, and headed off to the side of the arena furthest from the centre of Konoha. Pausing to send a pair of Lightning Lances at the Suna Jinchuuriki, he flew further off as a sand protrusion approached. Gaara demolished part of the stadium wall and followed, clearly intent only on continuing their fight.

Naruto extended his senses, and drank deep of the natural energy of Konoha. Performing the now-practiced merger into the three phase chakra of Sage Mode, he bit his thumb and worked a longer than usual string of handseals.

"SUMMONING: ARMY OF FOXES!"

Naruto was one of the first summoners in history to have sufficient chakra for this. He summoned every single fox on his contract, from the largest – three the size of large buildings – to the smallest, a tiny fox (called "Moe") that was too small to actually fight and mainly used because of weapons grade cute.

That latter fox was sent after Temari, managing to completely immobilize her in about a quarter of a second.

* * *

Naruto panted for a second. "Hey, Sasuke! What are the main problem areas?"

Sasuke's voice called from above. "Gaara's going bonkers off in the forest below me, there's a giant snake headed for the south wall, and the Kazekage has turned into some kind of snake demon trying to kill the Hokage!"

Every sand nin on the battlefield snapped their heads round to stare at the Kage box.

Naruto nodded. "Right… let's see… shadow clones!"

Over one hundred Naruto clones appeared next to him.

"You know the drill, everyone! Two tails!" A wave of Youkai bleed-off lashed the forest, and the small horde of clones shot off to their assigned areas.

Baki quietly stabbed the Sound nin next to him in the jugular. "All Sand ninja! Change of plan, kill the sound shinobi!"

* * *

Gaara, by now starting to descend into the Sand Cloak, began forcing out his raccoon summons in the hope one of them would let him continue his fight with Sasuke. One of the attempts he made, his chakra flared, and he promptly summoned the boss of his contract.

Shukaku.

Gaara blinked. No more voice whispering in his head… the thing in front of him that sounded like his mother was clearly an enormous sand tanuki (and hence it was unlikely to be his mother in truth)… oh, and he was still surrounded in sand, but it wasn't being demonic.

Then the Shukaku tried to crush him.

A lightning bolt hit the limb of sand stretching out towards him and cut it off, buying him time to scramble out of the way, and half a dozen copies of Naruto wrapped in red-orange chakra began trying to contain the one-tails.

An arctic fox skidded to a halt next to him. "You're the container, right? Tell me, is your bijuu completely insane?"

Gaara nodded. "Yes. It tried to make me into a mass murdering psychopath. I think it more or less succeeded."

"Right…" Mandias lunged forward and snapped up some of the sand raining off the tanuki, tasting it before spitting it out. "Bleh. Yep, that's sharingan work alright. I think Madara got to all the Bijuu if this is any indication. Naruto! One of you over here, please! Niyi, you too!"

The Shukaku roared as ten tails of waving red chakra pinned it down, and Sasuke blasted any part of it that began to extend past the cage. Sakura swapped to her warrior aspect, summoned the biggest otter she could, and had him begin hosing down the sand demon with water to slow it.

* * *

Mandias, Niyi and the clone of Naruto landed lightly on hard, cracked mud.

Mandias looked around. "There's desert all around us… so what's this? Some kind of dried up oasis?"

"Hey, where's the bijuu?" Naruto asked. "Shouldn't it be here?"

"Perhaps. But we're inside the mind of the beast, not the container. So it might not be expected to have a form. Sakura's a special case – most people's minds don't normally have such real personifications of themselves." Niyi lectured. She glanced around. "Though I have to admit, this is quite appropriate."

A gentle breeze blew across the area, then strengthened abruptly into a gale as a sandstorm appeared on the horizon. The two foxes covered their muzzles with their tails, and Naruto dropped back into his chakra cloak to protect him from the flying sand. "Is it me, or has the sun got a lot stronger?"

Mandias squinted up. The sun, though high in the sky, was red. And there were three tomoe… "Oh, that can't be good. It's the core of the genjutsu! Right, Naruto, listen carefully. I need you to draw on your complete allocation of Millie's chakra and spread your aura as far as you can go."

Naruto complied, his blue-streaked red aura of power expanding to form a tenuous globe several feet across. The two tail cloak he had up dropped to a single tail, an began to waver. "I can't push it any further out, or I lose the solidity of the cloak and dispel in the sandstorm."

"That'll be enough. Now, force your chakra into a random pattern. Think, say, swirls or something."

"On it!" Naruto applied his first stage Rasengan principle to his entire extended aura of power, and a full tail of chakra in a scramble pattern broke the illusion on the Shukaku like it was sugar glass.

* * *

Jiraiya watched as about sixty two-tail Naruto clones rampaged through the battle lines, three of them tearing a giant snake apart before it hit the wall and the rest seeking out and capturing Sound ninja as well as those Sand ninja who hadn't heard Baki's order.

The Sannin shook his head ruefully. "I sort of feel redundant…"

* * *

Naruto and five clones leapt onto the roof of the stadium, where the Hokage was fighting Orochimaru. Three of the clones leapt for the barrier and were violently torn to shreds, the barrier barely managing to break through even the two-tail aura of chakra.

One of the remaining clones tried to pull more than two tails of chakra now some was free, but ended up dispersing as the unstable cloak forced a destructive transformation on him.

A nearby ANBU looked over at him. "Uzumaki! Please, you can't help here. Go and lend your weight to the other battles in the village."

"Oh, I'm there as well. In fact, I think one of my clones just made the Shukaku sane again… and when the clone dispersed, it was apologizing constantly. Yeah, seems to have worked. But do you have any idea how strong this barrier is?"

Yamato gave the barrier a careful look. "It's being fuelled by four ninja, so it can't be too powerful… your clones nearly made it."

"Right!" Naruto forcibly yanked out a third tail of chakra, then grimaced as his skin started to tear and lunged for the barrier. With an explosion of clashing chakra, he passed through and out into the space Orochimaru had made to fight his teacher.

The Third reacted in shock, and the Snake Sannin took the opportunity to use his Impure World Resurrection without being interrupted. Three coffins rose from the ground, and opened to reveal all the former hokages of Konoha.

Orochimaru wasted no time in sinking their control seals, a slightly different form than the one he'd originally planned on – allowing the spirits of his teachers to talk normally would help to demoralize the Third, and after all that was the whole point of using them. The Fourth, on the other hand, well, taunting him would be fun.

* * *

Minato blinked. "I'm… not quite alive. I see. Then…" He spotted the boy staring at him, ignoring the First and Second talking to the Third. "Can it be… Naruto?"

The boy blinked. "How do you know my name? Wasn't I just some random kid you sealed Millie into?"

"No, I knew exactly who you were, I chose your name." Then the Fourth's train of thought fell off a cliff. "Millie?"

Naruto absently passed over a pamphlet. "The foxes say thanks for breaking Madara's contract with them, by the way. And how did you get involved with choosing my name?"

Minato flipped through the pamphlet. "I'm your father… don't you know that yet? Saru, what the hell?"

The Third looked uncomfortable. "I thought it was for the best. I mean, it was supposed to be a secret that he held the Kyuubi as well, but clearly that's fallen apart."

Orochimaru chuckled darkly. "Ku ku ku… oh, this is delicious. Yondiame! Kill your son! Shodiame, Nidiame, help me kill the Sandiame!"

Minato threw a series of handseals, and the area they were in was cordoned off from the rest of the battle by a smaller barrier. The former Hokage then sat down.

"Er…" Naruto ventured. "Shouldn't you be trying to kill me?"

"I am. By my estimate, I have as much chance of killing you sitting here waiting for you to die of old age as I do going all out against you. If he'd said to _try_, then I'd have to make an effort. But keep up that chakra cloak, will you, it's what's giving me the loophole." Minato smiled. "So, tell me, how's your life been so far? I'll tell you the story of my own life while we're at it."

* * *

"Do these people not understand the concept of gratitude?" The Namikaze raged. "I mean, come on! Last wish of a dying hero, and I didn't see them being like this to Mito Uzumaki, or for that matter your mother!"

The Fourth calmed slightly. "Okay, I don't think we have much longer, so I'll say this. There's a soul fragment of me as a failsafe in the seal for if it collapses completely, and then if you break it completely a second time your mother's there to help. Not that it'll be needed, of course… and since she can look out, she knows exactly how you're doing. I'll just say this. I'm certain she's as proud of you as I am – I could not ask for a better son. Live long. Live well, and get Jiraiya and Tsunade to help you on your dream – they're your godparents, not that I imagine they've told you that. And finally, never give up."

Naruto's eyes shone. "I won't let you down, dad."

"Good. Now, the best way to dispel this animation technique is probably going to be blowing my head off. I know it can't be a nice thing to do, but it has to be done."

"Bye, dad." Naruto's chakra tails lashed out, and he turned away sobbing as he destroyed the facsimile of his hero… of his father.

Then he charged Orochimaru, who was so surprised that the "demon" had beaten the Fourth that he barely dodged the trio of lunging tails. The Third seized the moment and used Enma to knock the Kusanagi into the sealing barrier and render it unreachable, then Naruto smashed the first two Hokages and Orochimaru dropped the barrier to run.

* * *

Sarutobi looked over the half-demolished landscape of Konoha, and at the thirty or forty Naruto-clones running around it in two-tailed form still keeping an eye on things. Sighing, he turned to the original, sat on the roof next to him.

"I'm truly sorry, Naruto. I planned on telling you when you reached Jonin, but I was wrong to think like that – if there's one thing the invasion really brought home to me, it's that I am in no way immortal. I plan on releasing what there was your parents left to you tomorrow, and I'm almost certain you'll get promoted."

"Eh, don't forget Sakura and Sasuke, old man. They were a great help against the Shukaku."

"Indeed. How is young Gaara, anyway?"

"He's, well, calm I suppose. He's kind of coming to terms with the idea that the bijuu was both not his mother and insane – and with the loss of his father. Apparently the sand's now a permanent part of his system – it actually defended him against the tanuki before I restrained it, and he says he'll consider it a memorial to his real mother."

"Neatly resolved, then. And I agree with what you say my predecessor – and successor – said. I'm proud of you, Naruto."

"Thanks!"

* * *

Naruto rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "Sorry, guys, I'm not going to be working with you the next couple of months. I have to go and get Tsunade of the Sannin back to Konoha, because Jiraiya thinks it might help him persuade her if I came along."

Sakura nodded. "Makes sense. I mean, she is your closest living relative."

Naruto looked shocked. "What?"

"Her grandmother was Mito Senju, neé Uzumaki. So she's descended from another member of the Uzumaki clan. You… missed that?"

"Oh, so that's where the name's familiar from! My dad said she used to be the Kyuubi container back when she was alive."

"Your dad?" Sasuke asked, interested.

"Yeah, talk about a dream come true. Orochimaru summoned back all the old Hokages back when he was trying to kill the old man, and it turns out that the Fourth was my dad!"

Kakashi slowly fell over in shock.

Sasuke considered, nodded, then went back to learning shape manipulation. He had this idea for making the chidori into things like laser beams, or senbon, or shuriken, or… oh, so many ideas.

Naruto grinned. "And hey, maybe when I get back I'll teach you guys the Rasengan! It's pretty neat and Jiraiya said how it might be possible to add elements to it!"

Kakashi twitched. _Didn't sensei never manage that? How much is Naruto going to break the normal rules of being a Ninja, anyway?_

* * *

Ideas credit (often just something I saw and liked; sorry):

Angel of Snapdragons for several things probably, like the false Transformation instructions Naruto got.

ShaperXV for the Gold/Black chakra concept and the True Names. Among others.

* * *

Summons:

Fox:

Kaen: Original.

Kori: Original, illusion based. Illusions are fragile but subtle due to unusual inducement.

Lani: Ozy and Millie, Mil_lani_ Minerva Mudd.

Mandias: Ozy and Millie, Ozy_mandias._

Kyuubi/Millie: Millicent Mehabitel Mudd, Ozy and Millie_._

Ichimaru: Bleach, Gin Ichimaru.

Kuda: Technically original, but based on the interpretation of kudagitsune from Digimon Savers. The tattoo thing is from the Dragonback series by Timothy Zahn.

Aya: original.

Niyi: original.

Moe: original.

Kajiura: named for Yuki Kajiura.

Okhi: original.

Doko: original.

Hawks:

Tadewi: Hawk messenger. Original.

Otters:

Tagg: Taggerung, one of the Brian Jacques books.

Lutra: original. Otters are Lutra Lutra.

Raccoons:

Totoro: guess.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hiruzen."

The Third turned. "Ah, Danzo. Good morning. Thank you for not objecting to my slate of promotions from the Chunin Exams."

The old war hawk inclined his head. "It was the least I could do… I was wrong, old friend. I thought that Konoha would be at too terrible a risk if her forces were allowed to soften in the decade of peace. You know how I wished for the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki to be entered into ROOT… but here we are, in the aftermath of an invasion and essentially no worse off. All thanks to that Will of Fire that I took for meaningless garbage." Danzo then straightened. "Be that as it may, I have discovered that a number of ninja were overlooked for years by the system, and appear to have become emotionally conditioned by actors unknown. I am unsure for what reason, but I think I ought to bring it to your attention."

Sarutobi smiled to himself. "You never let slip anything that could possibly incriminate you, do you, Danzo? Well, fine then. I'll incorporate them into extant squads once tested."

* * *

Jiraiya threw a scroll to Naruto. "Here, sensei gave it to me as I left. I think it's your chunin vest. Feel free to modify it as you see fit, I sure did."

Naruto grinned. "Hell yeah, I made it! Any idea who else did?"

"Both your team mates made chunin as well, but apparently your team's being kept together as essentially a cohesive squad, at least until people feel less embarrassed taking orders from you. Neji didn't, but I don't think he noticed. That summon trick you used on him made him so out of it he didn't even notice the _invasion_. As for the rest…" Jiraiya thought hard. "Hinata did, Ino didn't, Tenten and Lee both did, and it was felt that attempting to invade the village meant that the Sand genin could damn well get promoted by their own village instead of ours."

"Wow. Not bad, then."

"Actually, that reminds me. I think your friend, Gaara, is being considered as the next Kazekage."

Naruto blinked. "Wait, he's the same age as me. How can they be fine with a twelve year old in charge of a village?"

"First is that he never sleeps, so it's more like sixteen or eighteen in terms of experience. Second, this is _Suna_. The people who looked at a puppet show and turned it into a combat art."

"Fair point. Hmm… Gaara, like me, is a Jinchuuriki son of the Yondiame Kage of our respective villages. And now he's becoming a Kage." Naruto gave a thumbs up. "I like this trend!"

* * *

Sasuke entered the hospital room where Kakashi was recovering. "Sensei, if you were involved in a tricky fight, you really should have called on us. I mean, we can help."

At that moment Aoba ran into the room. "Is it true that Uchiha Itachi was in Konoha and is now looking for the container of the Kyuubi?"

Kakashi blanched, and looked at his student.

The only thing there was a sign hastily placed against the wall, reading "Captain, I would like to request use my first day of leave from duties due to a family matter."

With a caw, an eight foot hawk shot off past the window.

"Damn." Kakashi sank back onto the bed. "Gai! Let us have a youthful challenge over which of us can catch my youthful subordinate first!"

"Yosh!" Gai jumped through the wall.

Asuma looked over Kakashi. "Aren't you basically bedridden?"

Kakashi nodded, and took out a book. "I suppose that means he's going to win then. Good thing I speak Youth."

* * *

Naruto blearily opened the hotel door. "Yeah, yeah, what is it?"

Itachi glared at him. "You are the Nine Tails container?"

"No, I just look like him."

An awkward silence developed.

"Are… you sure?"

"Pretty sure. I mean, I know the whisker marks are misleading, but this is all cosplay stuff. Big fan."

"Really."

At that point the awkward atmosphere was broken by a caw, and a crash as Sasuke rammed his summon into the corridor through an end wall.

"Itachi!" The Last Loyal Uchiha roared, sparking a Chidori to life in his hand. "I want answers about that night!"

"Ah…" Itachi said arily. "Foolish little brother. I did it to test myself, I told you already."

"Not about that! What was Madara doing there?"

"You are not yet full enough of hatr– wait, what!"

"Wow, Itachi," Kisame said with an undertone of laughter, "That's the first time I've ever heard you raise your voice."

Itachi spun and nailed Kisame with a glare. "Tsukuyomi!" As his partner fell over, he whirled back to Sasuke. "How the hell do you know about that?"

"We worked it out. What I want to know is, why? Why did he want to destroy his own clan? Why force the Kyuubi to attack Konoha? Why did you help him?"

Itachi wiped blood from his eye, and took a deep breath. "You have to understand, Madara is perhaps the most manipulative bastard on the entire planet. As far as I was concerned, the Uchiha clan's planned coup four years ago had to be halted, and he wanted to help me out of motives of revenge for their not supporting him decades ago – I never dreamed he would have the entire clan destroyed, only the elders who were alive at the time."

Sasuke stared at him. "You didn't read many history books, did you."

"Not really, no. Didn't have the time when I was in the middle of a three way tug of war between ROOT, ANBU and the Uchiha clan."

"Fair enough. But what about the – oh, excuse me a second." Sasuke dismissed his hawk, earning a slightly peeved "Finally!", and the hotel settled back where the summon had been.

"I wasn't going to say anything." Itachi commented. "Anyway, I now believe he had the entire clan wiped out because he wanted to ensure that he was the only person left who could manipulate tailed beasts."

Naruto added his own angle. "The tailed beasts are normally just kind of jerks at worst. Madara's the reason they all went nuts about ten years before the Valley of the End battle – I think that ties in, he's trying to isolate them."

Itachi nodded. "Makes sense. I mean, if the bijuu have been around for almost a thousand years before now and there's still some semblance of a civilization, then they'd have to be."

Kisame groaned in the corner. Itachi broke off for a moment, and carefully peeled up his eyelid. "Tsukuyomi again. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Akatsuki's plan is to capture and extract the nine Bijuu for an unknown purpose. There are several it could be – make new hosts, super weapon, whatever, but the leader wishes to bring peace. Somehow."

Naruto frowned. "He wants to commit murder repeatedly to bring peace? That makes no sense! Er, no offence."

"None taken. Now, my plan was to essentially be really exaggeratedly evil, so that when Sasuke was old enough and came to kill me he could be seen as redeeming the clan. Since that would leave Madara around, it won't be the end – but it has to be done."

Sasuke clenched his fists. "Why? If you're still loyal, then why do I have to kill you?"

Itachi smiled gently. "I'm dying anyway. Cancer, I think, made worse by the Mangekyo Sharingan. I'll be lucky to last another four years. And perhaps it's best that way – Madara's someone you can't really fight without a Mangekyo of your own, and if you kill me you will almost certainly end up with it. If you do… take my eyes in place of yours, it will make it permanent and remove the corrosive effects."

Sasuke nodded, angrily rubbing his eyes. "I… I wish it didn't have to be this way."

"So do I. But then, we can't choose our lives – just what paths we make." Itachi took a set of pamphlets from his pocket. "Here. Each of the current Akatsuki members, and what I know of them."

Naruto took them. "Thanks. Well, you better get going."

"Indeed. Goodbye… brother. Oh, and if anyone asks, what I made Kisame believe was that I broke Sasuke's arm, hit him with the Tsukuyomi, then Jiraiya showed up just in time to save you two. All fiction, of course."

"Hey!" Jiraiya shouted. "I turned up easily in time!"

"Only because I'm not the mass murdering psychopath everyone believed me to be." Itachi hoisted Kisame onto a shoulder and ran off through the hole the hawk had left.

"You know…" Naruto mused, "That's possibly the most pleasant missing nin I ever met."

Sasuke forced a chuckle. "You've met three."

"Four. Kisame counts."

Jiraiya walked over. "Well, that went well. What were you planning to do if it became a fight?"

Naruto considered. "Probably just start making two-tail clones and never stop."

Sasuke leafed through the pamphlets. "According to this, Kisame's sword steals chakra."

"It's got to have an absorption limit eventually." Naruto then pointed to Sasuke. "And what are you doing here?"

"Taking leave for a family bereavement. I checked, and you get a day for every dead family member. I have almost a year stored up."

"Can you claim leave earned in the academy?"

"They don't say. I feel confident that my case will stand up in court, though. It's a matter to be tried by the military police, as I am an Uchiha."

Naruto's lips moved as he tried to process the chain of logic. "That's fiendish."

At that point, Gai jumped into the room and knocked Jiraiya out with a boot-to-the-head.

* * *

"Well, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked with a hint of sarcasm. "Done with your little holiday?"

"Yes, actually. Did you know that Itachi has a thing called the Mangekyo Sharingan, and can torture people mentally for days?"

Kakashi gave him a look. "Why do you think I'm in hospital? He did it to me! Damn Uchiha and their broken bloodline limits…"

"You can't talk, you have a sharingan and are apparently so good with it that it's your nickname."

"Well, yes, but at least it's not the Mangekyo Sharingan-OW!" Kakashi clutched his headband. "That was surprisingly painful. Aaand now I have a sinking feeling." He picked up a mirror, and moved his one-eye blindfold aside, to reveal a three-petal design. "Where the hell did that come from?"

Sasuke looked it over critically. "It's different from Itachi's."

"Probably an individual thing. What I'm more surprised by is that I have it at all."

"Itachi said it came from the guilt of killing your best friend – though presumably it's just someone you care for significantly – and then made permanent by taking the eyes of your brother. You're the most teamwork-obsessed person in Konoha. Who the hell did you kill?"

Kakashi looked down. "I didn't… but I feel responsible for his death. I used to be a punctual loner who hated teamwork, if that gives you an idea of how badly I took it. It was him who gave me this eye, as he died, to replace the one I lost."

Sasuke looked mollified. "Explains the scar, then. Who was it?"

"Obito. Think Naruto, but an Uchiha – and not a demon container, obviously."

"I would rather not." Sasuke paused. "Am I now the only person on the planet with an un-evolved Sharingan?"

"Looks like it. But I have no clue what mine does. Looks like after I get out of hospital I'll be staring at a target and saying every syllable chain in the language."

"Itachi's powers are named based on mythology, if that helps."

* * *

"Brat! I could take you out with one finger!"

Naruto hefted his fist. "You're on!"

Jiraiya raised a hand. "Can we perhaps do this a little out of town? I mean, this could get messy."

"Really? You been training the kid?"

"I haven't really needed to."

At that point a Naruto-clone turned up. "Hey, boss, I found a coin and decided to try gambling. And, well, I don't think we can actually lose at games of chance."

"Oh, neat. Grab a lottery ticket or something, perhaps?"

"You got it!" The clone vanished back into the crowd.

Tsunade frowned. "Impressive. Shadow clone?"

"Yep!"

* * *

"Okay, brat. Make your move."

With a thump, Naruto materialized his two tail chakra cloak.

Tsunade nodded absently to herself. "Thought he looked familiar, that must be it…"

"That or that I'm an Uzumaki, so technically your closest living relative." Naruto replied casually. "Well? I'm waiting. Let's see you beat me with one finger."

"Okay, fine. I can't beat you with a finger." She tore up a piece of ground and compressed it into a dense ball, before flicking it at Naruto with a _boom _of tearing air. It hit his forehead and, while it didn't penetrate the cloak, still sent him sailing backwards from the sheer momentum of the impact.

He eventually came back to Earth with a thump, when his trajectory intercepted with a rock spire.

"OW."

"See, kid?" Tsunade strolled over, her former teammate and current apprentice behind her. "Not so easy to beat a Sannin, is it?"

"I got Orochimaru to go away! Blew his zombie Hokages up and stopped them from killing the old man!" Naruto rubbed his forehead, his hand passing easily through the cloak. "Jeez… you hit worse than Sakura."

Shizune stared. "Are you okay? That much blunt force impact would at least concuss most people."

"Eh, part of being the container is a pretty sweet passive regeneration. It's sort of necessary as going above about the three tail limit still means I begin to destabilize."

She continued staring. "How exactly are you unconcerned about that? I mean, if I knew my body would break down under the strain of anything, I'd panic over it."

"Name me an S-class ninja without something like that."

Shizune thought. "The Fourth?"

"Dad's last technique did kill him, though. And mind sticking to living ninja?"

"The Third?"

"Breaking out the same technique before I intervened."

"Er… Jiraiya?"

Jiraiya shook his head. "Sage Mode's incomplete for me. I get disfigurements which, while minor, still amount to spontaneous warts and my nose changing size."

Shizune had to think hard. "Er… hm… what about the current Raikage?"

"I don't know much about him, so I have to concede the point. Bet he has something like it in reserve, though." Naruto lay back on the rock spire, which began crumbling ever so slightly under the pressure. "But you take my point? At least I can fix it."

Tsunade looked fascinated. "So, does your regeneration mean you age faster, like mine does?"

"Are you kidding? I'm short for twelve, let alone fourteen or whatever I'd be with that. It's related to shapeshifting, if that helps."

She rubbed her chin. "I'd love to study that…"

"Well, if you would only come back to Konoha, then you'd have the chance. And it would be great for my team mate, too, she's a real fan of yours."

"Half the Kunoichi in the elemental countries are fans of mine, brat, I'm one of the only Kage rank female ninja. Though apparently there's someone in Mist who's getting there…"

Naruto dropped his cloak and pulled out the set of pamphlets Itachi had given him. "Hang on, there's someone on here as well. One of the members of Akatsuki is female. Wow, blue hair…"

Jiraiya started with shock. "Let me see that." Naruto passed over the dossiers.

When Jiraiya had them, he gasped. "Konan… she's still alive? And an S-class ninja, as well…"

Tsunade snapped her fingers, trying to remember. "Konan… Konan… that orphan girl from Ame? The one with the origami techniques?"

Jiraiya nodded. "Yes. And while that sounds a bit pathetic, one must remember that explosive tags are made of paper. I have to wonder if the other two are also alive… hang on, this is Yahiko. But with the Rinnegan? This makes no sense. Nagato was the one with the Rinnegan."

"Is the Rinnegan another of those eye powers? Like the Sharingan?"

"Yes, actually. It's supposed to be the most powerful dojutsu of all, though given the Mangekyo Sharingan I'm not sure it can hold that mantle." Jiraiya took Itachi's file. "At least most of the Mangekyo powers are eye based… nope, wait, that one makes even less sense than the Rinnegan. Giant three-armed storm god?"

Naruto nodded absently. "So, what about it, granny? You coming back with us?"

Tsunade sighed. "It's pretty clear that I'm just going to end up back in Konoha anyway, isn't it? And don't call me granny!"

"What else am I supposed to call you? You're the same age as Jiraiya, and he's clearly two generations older than me, and you're a woman related to me. Unless you prefer great-aunt? Oh, Dad said you two were my Godparents, would that be okay?"

Tsunade blinked. "I don't believe I missed that, that's why you look so familiar… your dad's the Fourth, right? When the hell did you speak to him?"

"Orochimaru used the Impure Resurrection, and it seems Minato somehow subverted the commands he was given enough that he and Naruto just had a long chat." Jiraiya chuckled. "It was really strange to watch, actually, this massive battle going hammer and tongs on one side of the arena, and on the other a kid in a three tail chakra cloak and the Fourth Hokage just sitting down for a talk."

Tsunade chuckled. "So he's had that chance, has he? He's very lucky."

Jiraiya nodded. "Yeah. Though, I just thought… did you ever get over that blood problem?"

The Slug Princess shook her head. "No, I still just freeze up. Not the best problem for a medical ninja to have, really."

Naruto grinned. "I can fix that! Summoning: Ninja therapist!"

Niyi appeared in a puff of smoke.

Jiraiya gasped. "Did you say Ninja Therapist? As in, she is a fox that can help ninja with their emotional issues?"

"Yeah, she does it a lot. Why, is that significant?"

Shizune bent over to whisper. "Naruto, most powerful ninja are really messed up in the head. In fact, most ninja are, period, and it's nearly impossible to find therapy for them. This may be more significant to medicine than that regeneration thing."

"Yeah, I guess Sasuke was a bit more messed up before Niyi spoke to him… and so was Sakura… and Gaara… I see your point."

Niyi was sitting on her haunches next to Tsunade, who was by now lying on a couch formed with an Earth technique. "So, tell me about your mother."

* * *

Orochimaru looked around Tanzaku Gai. He was sure this was where Kabuto had said she'd be, and he needed Tsunade's help rather desperately before Kimmimaro fell apart. With no Curse Seal on an Uchiha, it was looking like he'd have to use the Kaguya for his next body jump… if he could get the boy healthy, that was. "Tsunade? Where the hell are you? I have an injured subordinate that needs healing!"

* * *

"I understand your trauma about this sort of thing, but it's not something to worry about. We just recently received objective proof that there is an afterlife – the former Hokages were pulled from there by Orochimaru, after all, personality intact – and come to think of it, we might actually owe him for rescuing the Fourth from eternal torment or whatever it is the Shinigami does."

Tsunade nodded to the fox, not trusting herself to speak. There was something in her throat…

Niyi's gentle voice continued. "And as for blood, well, seeing blood doesn't mean someone's dead. It means they're hurt, but anyone who still bleeds is still alive and can be saved. You're not going to let something you understand in all particulars simply defeat you that easily, are you?"

The last Senju clenched her fists. "H- Hell no!"

"Blood is a conduit for power, a life sustaining fluid, the representation of a person on a deep level. It's why it can be used for summoning. Above all, it is _life,_ not death."

Her patient gathered herself, and got up off the couch. Taking out a kunai and visibly steeling herself, she sliced her thumb and ran through the summoning technique.

When she was able to finish without freezing up at the sight of her own blood, she looked at the resultant slug – a foot or so long – in wonder. "I did it… thank you, miss Niyi."

"That's what I'm here for." The dichromatic fox vanished in a smoke cloud.

"Er…" The slug looked around. "You haven't summoned any of us in years, is something wrong? And when did Minato get younger?"

Naruto blinked. "Is the resemblance that obvious?"

* * *

Sakura held the leaf in her hands. She had managed to get a basic water technique, the Violent Water Wave, off of Kakashi recently, and through learning it had got some sense of how to use Water chakra. But the exercise of using the element without conversion seals was going poorly.

_Water._ _What is water, what does it represent? Subtlety. Flowing without touching. Power hidden, size unseen, depths. Versatility. In Ice, Water makes the element more solid. In Boil, it conveys the power. In Wood, it creates movement. In Storm, it provides a path. In weapons, it makes the user more graceful. In all things, water is not the power, but the conduit for it. That which lets it seek the target._

For a moment, her vision blurred, then the leaf was abruptly soaked.

* * *

Within her mind, the Sakura of control stared around wildly. There was her warrior aspect, so who was controlling her body?

"Hello."

Both Sakuras turned to the newcomer, surprised to hear a voice like their own. They saw a third Sakura, this one with deep blue eyes and a demure expression. "I suppose that must have been surprising for you. In truth, it was for me as well – I think we just created a new aspect for the Water element. Me."

Warrior gave a wild grin. "Welcome to the party, then. You seem very humble, why's that?"

Control held up her hand. "I think I know. Her element's affecting her personality, just like how you're more… brash than I am. And it's more her being subtle than anything."

Water nodded. "That makes a great deal of sense. But does this mean that we will have to choose which of us is in use at any time?"

Control pointed to the chair. "Well, not which _one_, anyway."

Water turned, a graceful and precise motion, to see that the single chair in their shared mind was replaced by two.

"Neat." Warrior weighed in. "This mean we get two out of three now?"

"I presume so."

* * *

Sakura blinked twice, then got up from her seat and flipped through the seals for the Violent Water Wave. The technique fired with a massive blast of water compared to her earlier uses, easily enough to be useful in combat. Another rapid blink, and she tried the technique again, this time omitting the first hand seal. It misfired, but a second try got it just right.

_Okay, being able to pick two of element, control and power is going to be kinda cool._

An idea came to her, and she switched to Power/Control, then ran through the complex set of seals for self measurement of chakra. It was designed to sort of flow one's chakra through it from one side of the measurement structure to the other, and quantify what went through as a point of light that shone with colour. It rose from the ground to a metre in height as red, then returned to the bottom as orange and went again, this time taking several times the chakra for the same rise. Naruto had tried once, and (after a few dozen false starts) gotten a point that blazed through the entire rainbow in a second, before passing out of the human visual range.

Kakashi had told him to end the technique at that point as they couldn't learn anything else useful, but the upper end he'd passed was Kage rank. Not that that hadn't been obvious from how he threw around a Jonin level force multiplier technique like confetti.

Sakura's Control alone was in the red, but her Power alone was into the very low yellow. Now she got something about middling on the yellow, so her two aspects combined produced at least some more than both alone put together.

More importantly, though, that was enough that she could sustain a good illusion in combat. Clones, she could manage with split attention, but much more took too much chakra for her Control to supply alone.

_Hmmm… or perhaps I should look into utility techniques. Body Flicker is underused, as is Replacement._

* * *

Orochimaru stormed up the side of a mountain. "Is this where you've gone, Tsunade? I was going to offer you a business proposition, some time with Nawaki and Dan in return for healing one of my subordinates, and… what's with the crater?"

Tsunade looked shifty. "Nothing. What were you saying again?"

Jiraiya and Naruto legged it down the other side of the mountain.

Naruto turned to his godfather. "You sure this is going to work?"

"Nope! But Old Roachy always was one to go for known weaknesses, and if he tries to use her blood phobia on her he'll get a nasty shock. Anything else and Shizune'll have time to get us."

"This is just an excuse to perv out in a large civilian town for a week, right?"

The Toad Sage looked shifty. "Partly…"

"Right." Naruto sighed. "Time for more Rasengan practice, then. I still haven't got the hang of actually using it without a clone."

* * *

Kakashi sighed to himself, and looked down again at the list they'd prepared. Thus far, he'd named every _kami_ in Shinto from major to minor, all the legendary weapons and most of the mortal heroes.

"This is ridiculous. It might not trigger like this at all. And I'll be onto mythical beasts soon, I don't see why I have to do this."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "If you have a Mangekyo Sharingan, then you're one of the people who could actually fight or negate another. And I want to know what kind of restrictions there are on the powers as Madara never set the First on black fire."

"Fine, fine. But you better get the Ainu encyclopedia, because soon we'll be out of _kami_ entirely and onto _kamuy_-"

The list vanished into a wormhole.

Kakashi looked at the result for a few seconds, then – very slowly – fell over.

Sasuke nodded appreciatively. "Not bad. How much chakra did that take?"

"Medic!"

"Hmm… no blood either. You somehow got the Eternal Mangekyo from the transplant. Maybe your friend felt as guilty about you losing your eye in those last minutes or something?"

"Get me medical attention, damnit! And cover my eye before you go!"

* * *

"Okay, let's have a look at you." Tsunade grabbed Kimmimaro's arm and dragged him over to a small depression. "Let's see… what are your symptoms? Sniffle? Headache? Perhaps a bit of cramp?"

Kimmimaro glared at her. "I am a Kaguya. I literally rip my bones out of my body to use as weapons."

The Senju nodded absently. "Right, right, so you're probably calcium deficient. And my guess is that you don't actually get any proper medical checkups for how a poorly understood bloodline interacts with that tuberculosis, either."

Orochimaru strode over, chuckling. "Don't think I haven't tried, Tsunade. His bodily structure is radically different to that of anyone else I could experiment on."

"Orochimaru, are you actually capable of learning something without leaving a trail of corpses?" Shizune asked curiously.

"Well, I tried once, but that was the whole incident with the Wood element. Turns out that injecting sixty orphans with a dangerous, untested serum which may or may not even involve the First's genetic material was a bad idea. Who knew…" The snake sannin mused absently.

Even Kimmimaro was looking a bit put off. "For the first time, I'm glad that I'm the last of my bloodline…"

"You didn't know if it contained his genetic material?" Tsunade asked.

"His body was actually mostly missing by the time I got to it. There were signs the coffin had been opened before. Several times."

Shizune frowned. "That's kind of worrying…"

"Tell me about it. The Second was much more intact, but a quick test revealed no evidence of his water ability being an actual bloodline gift and I lost interest. As for the Fourth, well, that was no good either. His speed was completely unrelated to any bloodline, not even the Swift release." Orochimaru rambled. "Worst of all, though, was that I couldn't find a single Uchiha body! And when I went after Itachi… well, best not talk about that."

Tsunade had largely tuned out her former teammate's rambling, as it was mostly focused on his wide-scale desecration of the graves of her family, but something made her pause her diagnosis technique. "Wait, how did you not get an Uchiha? There were about three hundred or so of them."

"I have no idea. At first I expected that Konoha had taken them all, but when the ninja forces failed to upgrade to Sharingan eyes like Kakashi, well, so much for that."

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "And morality plays no part in it, I'm sure."

"Well, yes. Danzo _is_ still alive."

* * *

Kimmimaro rolled his arms experimentally. "I can actually move properly. That hasn't happened for years."

Tsunade wiped sweat from her brow. "Don't strain yourself for a while. That means no major combat, no strenuous training, and no opening the Gates."

"But I don't open the gates." The Kaguya looked confused for a moment.

"You had severe damage to the tenketsu and tissue around the Gate of Pain. That's where strain builds up faster than any other Gate, so it's often seen on really serious taijutsu users. That kind of scarring isn't found from anything else except being stabbed in the spine by a Fire chakra blade."

Orochimaru sighed, annoyed at having to reveal one of his secrets. "Kimmimaro, the Curse Seal is a stabilized form of opening the Gates. Normally, it would reverse the effects by promoting healing as the Gate of Life shut down, though I assume in this case it's not worked due to your illness."

Tsunade nodded to herself. "That would do it. Anyway, the damage is still quite bad and – as your lungs aren't toughened like the rest of your body – opening the Fourth Gate could lead to massive rupture of the pleural cavity. And that would be just nasty."

"Right. Now, Tsunade," Orochimaru gave a vicious grin, "A promise is a promise. Mind getting your assistant over here, the technique _does_ require a human sacrifice and I'm all out of Sound Genin after what I did to bring the Hokages back."

Shizune replied by firing a cloud of poison to obscure her position, and Tsunade frowned in momentary mental effort.

* * *

The slug on Naruto's shoulder, underneath the jumpsuit, fired a brief burst of acid and dispersed. Naruto reacted to the sting even as it regenerated. "It's time, Jiraiya!"

"Brat!" Jiraiya shouted as both leapt from the building. "Use a respectful name for me like everyone else does!"

"I know you better than they do, that must be it." Naruto replied, then bit his thumb and summoned Ichimaru. "Get up there and summon me, speedy!"

"Eh, if you're sure." The silvery fox flowed off with a wash of displaced air.

Jiraiya shook his head. "Only you, kid, would use a summon to cover two miles of distance."

By the time the old man had finished speaking, Naruto was gone.

* * *

Orochimaru began by summoning Manda. It was a good first step, as his summoning also involved a liberal amount of blood and would immobilize Tsunade. So it was with confidence that he slashed his thumb down his contract tattoo and invoked the most powerful of the snakes, along with two more as a support team.

"**Where are my sacrifices, Orochimaru? You know I demand them!"** Manda roared as he materialized.

Orochimaru chuckled. "There's a town just downhill, that work? Called Tanzaku Gai or something, it's large enough to sate you. But kill Tsunade first, will you?"

The ground shook, and Orochimaru returned his attention to the main battlefield. It wasn't an encouraging sight.

Tsunade, rather than cowering in haemophobic shock, was bringing out her own giant slugs. Kabuto had emerged from his cover, and was delaying engaging Shizune until his anti-poison technique was up. And Kimmimaro wasn't killing either of his opponents. Why?

Well, that would be because that infernal Kyuubi Jinchuuriki was attempting to knock him unconscious for "trying to attack granny!"

Oh, _Uzumaki_. That was where he recognized the brat's name from when Kabuto had reported to him. Brilliant. He'd pissed off every surviving relative of the three dead Hokages at once, and they were all here. Both of them.

At that point, Jiraiya arrived on the battlefield by way of Gamabunta landing on one of his secondary summons. This just kept getting better and better.

"Oh, wow!" came a voice from the jinchuuriki. "This is a big summon battle, right? I'll join in!"

Then a trio of foxes – not the size of his own large snakes, but nearly – appeared and began attempting seriously to fillet the other secondary snake summon.

Orochimaru multiplied himself with clones and drew the Kusanagi. He hadn't planned on fighting both his former teammates, but he was confident he could make a good go of it.

* * *

"So, what's the deal with you, anyway?" Naruto asked as a bone evaporated against his chakra cloak. Kimmimaro frowned in annoyance and pulled out another. "I mean, that bone thing you're doing is just gross. And I don't think it's healthy either."

"It is a blood line, the Dead Bone Pulse." Kimmimaro replied, and tried making his bone sword harder than steel. A quick test showed it to simply evaporate slower, and the other boy's dodging meant that it couldn't hit him before being too degraded to be any good. "It lets me manipulate the calcium in my bones."

"Wow, that's kinda cool, but still disgusting. Er, aren't bloodlines found in families? Where's yours?"

"I was the only Kaguya in a generation with this bloodline, and used as a weapon against the people of Mist. I have heard that this was involved in strengthening the bloodline purges of the village."

"Bloodline _purges_? That makes no sense! People with bloodlines fight better because they get a chance to survive long enough to get some experience, why would anyone just kill off all their best ninja?"

"I do not know. But the Fourth Mizukage was involved. In any case, I owe my Lord Orochimaru a great debt for saving me from a life of loneliness and misery."

Naruto considered this as a chakra-enhanced tail whipped around with barely a moment of mental effort and intercepted a barrage of finger bones. "Seriously, that's not right. And I suppose if that's the way you think, then I can't gainsay you."

The other tail from his current shroud smacked Kabuto in the face. "And as for you, creepy glasses guy! Shove off and stop trying to hurt Shizune!"

A shower of senbon needles volleyed after the traitorous Konoha-ninja and he was only able to block most of them, the remainder giving him quite an impressive set of piercings across the ears and cheeks.

* * *

"Lord Orochimaru!" came Kabuto's cry. "We must retreat!"

Orochimaru turned as three mud clones, a water clone, a shadow clone and two summoned snakes launched another massive attack salvo that Jiraiya evaded with a summoned frog, two A-rank earth techniques, a Rasengan and by unsealing an A-rank fire-technique-in-a-scroll to torch the summons.

For a moment he was thrown. _What is Leader from Akatsuki doing here?_

_Oh, hang on, that's Kabuto under the piercings. _"What! Why, I have this totally under control!"

With a crash, Manda landed next to him. That Tsunade was struggling out of a large crater, cursing, on the other side of the field, explained where he'd come from – Tsunade on full boost was fully capable of beating up a Bijuu, but the main issue was finding somewhere to stand to use it.

"**I'm leaving, Orochimaru! Next time, summon me to face Gamabunta OR Katsuyu, not both!"** The great serpent vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Orochimaru winced. "Okay, maybe not totally."

His clones had kept up their side of the battlefield, but when they launched three different elemental Great Dragon techniques at Jiraiya, the Toad Sage finally felt enough was enough and unleashed his own trump card.

At the sight of Jiraiya entering Sage Mode, the Kyubi Jinchuuriki not even fatigued from fighting Kimmimaro for five minutes (The boy had in fact barely moved, his cloak protecting him, but Orochimaru hadn't been paying attention) and the enemy starting to win the summon war, he decided to cut his losses and preserve his gains.

Making a quick signal to his subordinates, he vanished with them in a Body Flame technique. He was fond of it, it allowed much longer range jumps than the Flicker. Plus it looked nice.

* * *

Jiraiya released Sage Mode, and sighed. "Well, he's gone."

Tsunade scowled. "All that gaff about honoured sage mode, and you being a Sealing Master, and you forgot to ward the battlefield against long range teleports. I don't know, Jiraiya, you seem to have lost your touch."

The Toad Sage grinned, accepting the jab. "And what about you, Tsunade? Who was it I saw forgetting to harden the ground under her when she punched Manda?"

He rounded on Naruto. "And did I see you having a little chat with that Kaguya in the middle of the battlefield? What was all that supposed to be about?"

Naruto shrugged. "He hadn't actually hurt anyone else, and he seemed more unsure about how he couldn't hurt me than anything. Not much can in two tails. Besides, remember Gaara? And Itachi? Most people tend to reveal useful things if I keep them talking."

Tsunade shrugged. "It's true, that seems to work with most people. Don't know if you heard, but old Snakey let slip that his Curse Seals are based on the Inner Gates, and that's gold. Is his old student still in Konoha? I think we might want to analyze the thing again with that tit-bit."

Naruto jogged over to his three large summons. "You guys okay? Noh, Jo, Ha?"

The three foxes made rumbles of assent.

"Actually, where do your names come from anyway?"

Jiraiya pondered. "Sounds like it's related to plays. Noh is a type of play in three acts. Jo, Ha, Kyu."

Naruto snickered. "Nice one, guys. So the largest of you is Ha, and then the only larger fox on the contract completes the chain."

* * *

"Morning, Sensei. Out of hospital?"

Kakashi nodded. "That move gave me chakra exhaustion in seconds. I'm not sure if this Kamui-"

Kakashi's forehead protector vanished into a miniature wormhole and he collapsed.

The medics caught him. "Wow, that was perhaps the shortest time anyone's ever been admitted to hospital twice for the exact same problem."

* * *

Tsunade laughed. "You're kidding! So after you got your summon contract by total accident, the same way as _this_ idiot," she punctuated her sentence by cuffing Jiraiya around the head as he began to reach for Shizune, "And then the Uchiha on your team got his by a similar little reverse summoning, your third team member found a contract absolutely perfect for her in a backpack!"

Naruto nodded. "Well, it was Kori who found it, but Sakura certainly took to the contract well. And we're all Chunin, so we seem to be following in the footsteps of your team… granny."

"Brat!" she shouted automatically. "But go over the animals again?"

"Why?"

Jiraiya rubbed his head. "Ow… lay off the super strength when you do that, Tsunade!"

"You replaced half your Yang chakra with Spirit Frog essence, you can bloody well take it!"

"That's just mean…" Jiraiya pouted. "And as for what she was asking, the summons that our old team had shaped our relationship in – initially – subtle ways."

Naruto thought for a second. "Snake… frog… slug… oh, I see! It's like Jan, Ken, Pon!"

"Exactly. Snake beats Frog, Frog beats Slug and Slug beats Snake, though interestingly when we were last a team our personal battles would have gone the other way – I could beat Orochimaru at the time and so on."

"But our summons don't really have any connection, do they? Fox, Hawk, Otter."

Tsunade's lips moved for a moment. "Got it. They're separate but equal, each the – small, but still valid – apex predator of a different environment. Land, air, water."

Jiraiya looked contemplative. "That could be encouraging. If their summons personify the theme of their team dynamic, then it's going to be stable rather than dynamically unstable like ours was."

"Heh, that and we're all scared of Sakura."

"Hang on." Shizune was getting cross-eyed. "You can form a Jinchuuriki cloak and another person on your team is an Uchiha, the last loyal one if I recall – and you're scared of this Sakura?"

"She has some sort of mental aspect thing going on, she can be a bookworm with perfect chakra control one second and a taijutsu specialist the next. Eheh… she hits hard."

"Aspect?" Tsunade considered. "Kami blood?"

"Probably. Yeah, the old fox mentioned that, he said she had 'potent divine heritage' or something."

* * *

"Ah, Tsunade, good to see you." Sarutobi shuffled his paperwork to the side. "I understand that your godson there has done the same thing he does with everyone that gets within ten feet of him, and resolved most of your outstanding issues. Tell me, would you mind helping out in hospital at all? I understand that, in addition to the normal cases and a rather unusual case of combat trauma in a Hyuga, Kakashi Hatake is in and out of the hospital every other day. Something about a technique that eats through most of his chakra in one use."

Tsunade nodded. "Hang on, where did the combat trauma come from?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Eh, that was basically me. I used my boss summon to swallow him whole during the Chunin exams, and I think he was in Divination Circle mode at the time."

All the older ninja winced.

"Lord Hokage, does that mean…" Izumo asked from the mission desk.

"Yes, the Byakugan can provide 360 degree perception of an area of space. I… don't really want to think about it."

* * *

"Okay, guys, I finally got this working so now I can teach you. The Rasengan," Naruto formed one in his hand, "Is one of my father's two signature techniques, an A-rank ninjutsu that can basically chew through rock. It is also _incomplete_."

Sasuke blinked his Sharingan eyes. "You're kidding."

"Nope. This is a shape transformation technique alone. Hypothetically, it could be worked with nature transformation, but dad apparently kept blowing up shadow clones and just stopped trying after a bit. Oh, by the way, if either of you two try and complete it, use a shadow clone. This thing's damn powerful as it is, and if it has an element in it things just get worse. Destabilization is like holding an explosive tag."

Sakura chuckled. "You already tried, didn't you?"

The boy scowled. "Yep, slightest hint of Wind chakra and boom." He brightened. "But apparently both of you can manage at least the Rasengan at your current level of chakra, so here's how it works. First step is to use your chakra to pop a water balloon, by swirling the chakra in it in multiple directions at once."

Sasuke took one of the balloons. "Seems simple enough."

"Yeah, when Jiraiya taught me he left out the second half of the sentence as a 'test'. Freaking hermit…"

Sakura frowned as she took one, and went power/control. "You learned this in a month? More, to do it one handed?"

"More like two and a half months, call it a good few years in clone time. The tricky bit was getting my chakra swirling differently depending on the tenketsu in my hand, I got the with-a-clone form of it in hours once inspiration hit and I filled in the gap."

"But your control's still pathetic for your rank. This is an A-ranked technique based on pure chakra manipulation, not even any handseals."

"I've always substituted determination for skill, you know that."

Sakura chuckled, and got to work. _Swirl it clockwise and anticlockwise from alternating tenketsu…_

The balloon punctured and slowly emptied.

"Okay, that means you messed it up somehow. I'd guess one of the directions formed stronger than the others and it ripped at the pole of that one."

Sakura took another balloon and paused, before trying again slower. _Both directions at once… juggle them carefully… and… power them up!_

With a wash of water, the balloon tore.

"Wow, that's great! Only two goes!" Naruto enthused. "Er, hang on, I forgot to get the rubber balls for stage two."

Sasuke reactivated his Sharingan. "Mind me having a look at what it's supposed to form like, you two? I don't have the perfect control _or_ the clones to do it by trial and error."

Sakura held out her hand and reformed hers, as Naruto had already run off. Inwardly she was bubbling with new ideas.

_I know my control's good, very good. So what could I do if I had some ability to actually _sense_ the chakra I use, for feedback? I'll have to look into how the village trains sensors._

_Well, apart from the ones from the clans, like the Hyuga… and the Yamanaka… and the Inuzuka… wow, we have a lot of clans with sensory talent. Hope they still have classes for non-clan sensors._

Sasuke was talking again. "That is weird. I feel like – well, I can see it, but my eyes don't want to copy it or something. I think they can only copy complete seal sequences and sort of work around the mental aspect of the expressed chakra."

"Makes sense. And it explains why our sensei – is he out of the hospital yet, by the way? – hasn't got any copied techniques with less seals than normal."

Sasuke nodded in agreement. "He's still in hospital. Every time he gets out, I get him to practice his Kamui technique and he goes right back in again."

"Why?"

The Uchiha shrugged. "Mostly revenge for his training philosophy in Wave, really. If massive use of chakra makes it grow faster, then nearly killing himself with that hilariously costly technique should give him Kage reserves inside a year."

"That's evil. I approve."

* * *

Kakashi sneezed. His students were talking about him again.

_Damn Sasuke… I'll set Gai on him if he's so enthusiastic about training._

* * *

Sasuke shivered. _Where did that sense of incredible foreboding come from?"_

"Okay, I got the rubber balls!" Naruto called. "This one's the same as the last one, but it's about making sure you can put enough chakra into the Rasengan to pop the ball without the water helping. This was the easiest step of the lot for me, I don't mind telling you."

"Let me guess, first ball just exploded hard enough to put shrapnel in the walls."

"Wrong! …it was the second. The first was vaporized when I used Youkai."

Kakashi strolled over to his three Chunin. "Good news! I'm out of the hospital again!"

Sasuke spun to look at his sensei, dropping his rubber ball. "Sensei, what's the name of your Mangekyo technique again?"

Kakashi flinched. "You're not getting me with that one again. I refuse, categorically, to train in using the –" he noticed Sasuke looking eager. "unspecified and utterly not-to-be-named technique any more."

Sasuke nodded. "So it still activates whenever you say the name, then."

"Not my fault. Now, onto the point. You three have been hired, with me – probably due to the show you put on in the exams – for a mission in the Land of Snow. Basically, they have a recalcitrant princess who is now an actor they need brought back to her country to lead a revolution. Or make a film. Either or, really…"

The three just stared. Sasuke eventually spoke for them. "What."

"I don't see the problem."

"This is either a C rank or an A rank!" Sakura said. "I mean, remember what eventually happened in Wave? There was a revolution there, and while the Konoha ninja that went to help out didn't have a problem, they could have if Zabuza and that fake Hunter-nin had reappeared."

Naruto frowned. "The Hunter-nin was fake?"

"Don't worry about it, Naruto. If you haven't worked it out by now, then just… never mind."

Kakashi coughed. "Actually, Mist sent us a nice note saying that a lot of their missing nin are no longer missing, so Zabuza is back in the Seven Swordsmen. That does mean he's still alive, obviously. It seems that there was a revolution – they seem popular lately – and the Kage got utterly vaporized by a massive explosion."

"Who are the other Seven Swordsmen, then, sensei?" asked Sakura.

"Er, nobody yet. At the moment it's more of a One Swordsman." Kakashi shook his head. "But enough of that! Let's get going to the port we meet our client at!"

* * *

"And just why did you beat up our client?" Kakashi asked, laughter in his voice.

Sasuke winced. _Damn, we all got too caught up in that film._ "Naruto, stop the actress!"

"Right!" Naruto flashed through a summoning. "Ichimaru! Get me in front of the woman on that horse, will you?"

"If that's what you want."

* * *

"Well, here you go. What's the plan?"

Naruto responded by summoning again. "Kaen, be ready for a Replacement. Kori, throw up an illusion-trigger cloud across her path. Moe, go with Kaen for when she finally works it out."

"So you're going for a prank? We have taught you well."

"Please, I got you guys for a reason."

* * *

Princess Fuji rode desperately for safety. She couldn't go back to Snow. It was impossible. She'd be killed. Even if all the people there suffered under the rule of her uncle… she was too afraid.

Her vision blurred, and she rubbed at her eyes, lowering herself on her mount to go faster.

Several minutes later, she felt her horse slowing. Up till now, she'd been too busy making sure she didn't hit anything to pay attention to where she was going, but now she could look around.

She saw warehouses, the skyline of the town behind her, and a wharf ahead – including the ship her manager had chartered to go to Snow. How..?

"Are we done now?" came the voice from below her. Shocked, she looked again at her mount – and saw a red-furred back instead of the horse she was expecting.

* * *

Kaen walked up to the Konoha team. "Here she is. Nice one, Naruto, she didn't spot it until I spoke."

Kakashi looked the princess over. She was enthusiastically cuddling a fox that appeared to be mostly made up of a pair of big, dewey eyes, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck. "She'll be out of it for a while… may as well get her on the ship now."

* * *

"That iceberg looks like the perfect place to get some filming in!"

The three chunin looked between one another. Sakura spoke first. "I'll be close range, Sasuke be support. Naruto, do that sensor thing and have your fire summons ready."

"I never bothered ending the summon on Kaen, but point taken." Naruto sat down and focused. "Wow, the nature chakra here is really different to Konoha. Sort of… crisp, and clear. Still works fine though." He opened his eyes. "Nothing certain, but there's some areas of higher than normal chakra concentration. Keep your guard up."

"Don't have to tell us, Naruto." Sasuke muttered, and activated his eyes. "Hey… actually, watching acting like this is pretty neat. I wonder if they might do special effects like it."

"What, some sort of time-slowing thing where you can see the flight of shuriken? Shuriken time?"

"Yeah, could work. Catchy name."

* * *

"What the hell? Chakra shield?"

Sasuke fired off a Phoenix Flower to test that, producing a shimmer of chakra backlash and no other effect.

"That's right! It absorbs the chakra of attacks to provide a defence!"

Sakura threw a kunai at one of the Snow ninja. It hit the shield and bounced off.

"Your weapons are also useless!"

"Hang on… where's the chakra in a kunai?"

The Snow Kunoichi looked a bit unsure. "Er… I think it also uses our own chakra to shield. You can't get through it with only techniques, at any rate, and generally we're invincible!"

Two of the Snow-nin fired off Ice attacks at Sakura, and the third began to send ranged attacks at the more distant Sasuke, who replied with his own tools for the enemy kunai and fire attacks on the jutsu.

Sakura was saved by a flaming fox that cannoned through the attacks and dispersed them, followed by Kaen who began sending his own fire attacks in support. "Thanks, Kajiura."

"Think nothing of it. Aya!"

The smaller fox bounced up from Kaen's back. "Yippee, booom!"

The Snow ninja may have been immune to elemental attacks, but being positively bathed in flame wasn't exactly pleasant.

"Naruto! Get the film crew back onto the boat, we're pulling out of here!"

"Aw… I wanted to test the limit of that armour." Naruto muttered, as his customary horde of clones carted everyone off the iceberg. Kakashi's contribution to the fight was to throw a copied Ice technique at the Snow ninja, something Sasuke quickly began to do as well from the back of a hawk summon.

Naruto's foxes dismissed themselves as the ice finally collapsed, and Sakura hurriedly Replaced herself with a somewhat startled Naruto clone to get on the boat.

"Hey, that was really cold, Sakura…"

"Oh, cool off. Besides, if I hadn't I'd have been adrift and on ice, all at sea."

Sasuke winced. "Those puns might have broken the ice, but they're not much good otherwise."

Kakashi gave a heartfelt groan.

* * *

"What the hell is that thing?"

"It's a train. Isn't it?"

"I have no idea what a train is supposed to be, or for that matter those colourful metal wagons from earlier. Come to think of it, who was the seal master who made the cinema?"

"All of that is technology, Naruto. Keep up."

"I would, if I could. If we have technology that does all this sort of thing, then why does only Snow country use it? Apart from things like fridges and TVs, which kind of seem more complicated to me."

Kakashi blinked. "Er… not sure."

"Hell, I-"

Doto lost it. "Pay attention to me, damnit!"

The train's sides opened to reveal kunai launchers. Naruto formed a quick seal and continued talking. "I'd rather not. Now, as I was saying…"

Hundreds of clones formed and began seals. "Gusty barrier!"

Sakura watched as the walls of wind threw the kunai barrages everywhere but at the targets. "Nice one, Naruto. When did you learn that one?"

"One of my clones saw the sensei of Team Ten demonstrating, and it looked useful so I asked him about it. You know, he wasn't aware there was another Wind affinity in Konoha? He was so pleased! Then I just put fifty clones on it for a week, and here we are!"

Sakura tried to track how much time Naruto had spent on the technique. "That's what, a year's training?"

"Not really. All it means is that I get the absolute top percent training day, seven days in a row. I've always learned kinda fast."

"Tell me about it… hang on, is Asuma Sarutobi the only other Wind affinity in Konoha? Seriously?"

Kakashi nodded. "Wind in general is pretty rare, and we live in the Land of Fire, so elementally Wind is at a disadvantage."

"Aaargh!" Doton shouted. "Retreat and get the airship, you fools!"

* * *

Sasuke shook his head. "Why Naruto let himself get captured, I have no idea."

One of the remaining clones on the ground snickered. "Easy. This way, the boss gets taken to the castle, and then he can bring you guys along!"

"But will he be able to break out? Or summon?" Sakura thought for a moment. "Right, stupid question. He can shapeshift and has nine tails of chakra in his gut."

"Exactly!"

* * *

_Three… two… one… and I can't take it any more._

Naruto gently tugged on his second chakra source, then _pushed_.

The entire prison lit up like a Christmas tree, and then the less well buffered absorption arrays began to explode. Princess Kazahana gasped. "What are you doing?"

"Me? I'm actually putting some effort into things!" The seal tag on the door exploded, doing nothing at all to the Jinchuuriki but handily blowing the door down for him, and the manacles gave way.

Naruto dropped his tailed state and got to summoning. "Aya, Niyi, you know what to do."

* * *

Kakashi sighed as his other two Chunin vanished in smoke. "Right, we may as well attack now. I should really see about getting in on that whole reverse summon network they have going…"

* * *

"It's alright, I knew this, Naruto. When I returned here I would die."

Naruto replied by punching out a tail of forming chakra at the Black Chakra Armour, and took some considerable satisfaction as it began to glow red hot. Doton hurriedly disappeared up into his airship before the seal arrays could overload completely.

"Aw, that would have been fun… hey, princess, where's your necklace?"

"He took it! He must be going to activate my father's hidden ultimate weapon!"

Naruto sighed. "You know, technically I'm the ultimate weapon here."

"It's some kind of sealing technological wonder, I have no idea what it is! Doton could do anything with it!"

"Fine, fine. I suppose regime change is a worthy goal… hey, does this mean we're going to be in the next film?"

* * *

"Well, look at that. It's a light show machine."

Doton winced. "Never mind that! I'll still get rid of you, and then the-"

Two of his chakra-armoured ninja got hit by lightning bolts and collapsed. The third, the kunoichi, looked around wildly for a second before a blizzard of kunai exhausted her chakra shield and took her out.

Sakura grinned. "Cease fire, Naruto-clones! I knew getting you to collect all those Kunai would come in handy!"

Sasuke banked overhead on his Thunder Bird. "And turns out that they can't really handle the Lightning element. Go figure."

Doton turned to the disaster in shock. "What! The Chakra Armour is invincible!"

Naruto spun up a Rasengan, watching as it collected the local, rainbow-effect chakra. "This is kinda cool… now I want to see what it does."

"Just try it, brat! Your teammates may have beaten my subordinates, but my Black Chakra Armour is much stronger!"

"Eat prismatic Rasengan!"

* * *

"Aaaaaaaghhh…"

"So much for that. Hey, it looks like he hit the light show machine… and he broke the ice… and… what."

A pulse of power spread out from the machine, and in seconds the entire country was suddenly the perfect picture of springtime.

"What the hell. That cannot be natural."

Sakura looked it over. "This is strange… I can almost read this. It seems to say something about the glory of spring to the land of snow."

Sasuke dismounted from his hawk. "I don't see anything."

"No, I mean the seals themselves. I… no, lost it. Whatever it was, I can't see it anymore."

"I'm more concerned about where the animals came from!" Naruto said. "I mean, come on! Butterflies?"

* * *

"Oh, hey, Sasuke! Finished the Rasengan?"

Sasuke nodded. "I think I might try adding an element to it, actually. How hard can it be?"

"Your choice – just do it with a shadow clone. I guess you copied that off me?"

"No. You do it with fewer seals, I can only copy complete seal sequences."

"Huh. Makes sense, I suppose." Naruto ran through the complete normal sequence for the Shadow Clone, and only made one this time. "There you go."

"Thanks." Sasuke formed a shadow clone, and it began to focus fire chakra into the whirling ball of the Rasengan.

BOOM!

Bits of debris rained down around them, and Sakura hurriedly fired off a Water technique to put out the nascent fire.

"Wow… I see what you mean. There's no way I'm trying that myself."

* * *

Naruto did a double take. "Our next mission is to escort someone having a foot race? This is just sad."

"Yes. Someone called… Idate Morino." Sakura read.

"Idate _Morino?_ As in that Ibiki guy who tried to traumatize all of us?"

"You know… I don't know." Sakura tapped her chin with her finger. "Could be… let's go and ask him!"

Sasuke grunted. "How?"

"Okay, fine then. Let's not ask him."

"Wait, hang on. Look." Naruto pointed at the underside of the mission scroll.

Sakura flipped it over. "A storage seal? Let's see…" Another scroll came out. "Oh, wow. This is how Ibiki got his scars! Apparently, some instructor got his brother to steal the Raijin from Konoha because the instructor said it would mean he'd get promoted."

Naruto sighed. "Sounds familiar."

Sasuke was instantly alert. "Raijin? As in, the legendary sword of the Second Hokage?"

"I think-"

"Dibs. So very, very dibs. I _want_ that sword."

Naruto was a little taken aback. "Sure, but… why?"

"That sword was able to make the Second all but unbeatable on the battlefield. He was a _water_ element, so it can clearly convert chakra into lightning element chakra. I can use the chidori twice, _maybe_ three times a day. This would do what the chidori does for no cost, or very little. I. Want. That. Sword."

Naruto stepped back a bit. "Wow, you're coming on a bit strong there…"

"There are hardly any legendary weapons. Orochimaru and Itachi have two of them - Kusanagi and Sakenagi. I am very, very interested in getting one myself."

"Sakenagi?"

"Not sure, but it's in the brochure."

"So!" Sakura said brightly. "I think we can assume the guy with the Raijin is the bad guy, then."

"Better than that. This scroll has photos, and a note from Ibiki – it says 'get that bastard who screwed with my brother'."

* * *

"Naruto, that's just not fair."

"What?" Naruto asked. From his palanquin.

He'd made one out of scrounged materials, and was having a dozen Shadow Clones carry him so that if, or when, they had to fight after going alongside Idate in the race, he would be rested.

"It makes it look like you're taunting the racers!"

"Well, I could just have a fox or three parallel the course, but frankly this sounds better to me. I get to see the race, and keep an eye on those Rain genin. One of them still looks at me nasty."

Sakura nodded – she could hardly argue with that logic. At least not with other pressing issues. "Are those the same Rain genin from the exams, then? Were they the one that Kori stole the Otter contract from?"

"Damn, you might be right. Better keep them out of sight."

* * *

"You."

"Uuhhh… hey, Rain genin. Oboro, right?" Naruto said nervously.

"You. Stole my contract. Give it back."

"How was it stolen? There were literally no living signatories to it and you'd forgotten it in the bottom of a bag. Besides, I can't give it back, I don't have it."

Oboro was by now practically shaking with anger. "Who does, then?"

Naruto pointed to Sakura. "She does."

"Thanks a_ lot_, Naruto."

"Any time!"

Sakura sighed. "I'll get him later. Now, the thing is, I don't actually think you're right for them. They seem really pleased with me, and you're not the sort of person who'd fit them if I am, we're quite different."

Sasuke tapped Oboro on the shoulder. "If you perform the summoning technique with no contract, you get sent to the land of the most appropriate summon. You might want to try that."

"Fine, I will! And if I get sent to the land of the Otters, you're giving that contract right back!" Oboro took a soldier pill, flipped through the handseals and vanished.

Sasuke was counting to himself. "…and zero. Boom."

"What just happened, Sasuke?" Sakura asked.

"I planted an explosive note on him on a twenty second fuse and made him remove himself from where there are witnesses."

"…fiendish and slightly ruthless."

"Thanks."

* * *

Naruto, meanwhile, was chatting with Mubi and Kagari. "What, your Kage wears a slashed headband? That doesn't make sense."

"He's God, he and his Angel can do as they like."

"I thought most people were polytheist, you know, the gods descended from Izanami and Izanagi, that sort of thing? I myself am rather partial to Inari."

"Most are. But we are not any more, for Pain our god and his Angel have shown us the error of our ways by killing the false gods, and their foul servant the Salamander."

Naruto shook his head. "And I thought people found my Ramen obsession weird…"

* * *

In the land of the oil-producing squid:

_Bink_

Oboro looked around wildly. "Where am I?" He became aware of a… hissing. Looking down, he saw the tag on his clothes. "Oh, son of a-"

One of the squid saw him, and its' eyes widened.

BOOM!

FWOOM!

BABABA-BBA-BA-BA-BOOOM!

* * *

Kaen sneezed. "Whoo, someone did a _really_ good prank somewhere!"

A Rain headband bounced past.

* * *

"Well, well, well. Just goes to show that three chunin who were promoted too early can't take down a jonin." Aoi chuckled to himself. "But I suppose I can be magnanimous. I'll put the effort in to kill you with the most powerful weapon I possess… the Raijin, the Sword of the Lightning God!" The traitor pulled the hilt out of his pocket and lit it, the legendary sword crackling to life.

Then everything happened at once.

The three Konoha chunin of Team 7 vanished in smoke clouds, a hawk shot past at head height and bit Aoi's fingers, then another and larger one followed and Sasuke astride it grabbed the Raijin out of the air.

Naruto emerged from underground with a tiny fox on his head, and Sakura replaced with it as it jumped off his hair, then she began providing cover as he charged the shocked Jonin with a Rasengan in each hand.

Aoi, it transpired, wasn't a very good Jonin.

* * *

"Well, that went well." Sakura said brightly.

"You're telling me? We managed to help out Ibiki's brother and get him closure, completed the mission, Sasuke has his sword-"

"Yeeesss… you will be my sword and that is a good thing, because Raijin is a good sword…"

"-and is being kinda creepy, and the Land of Tea feel in debt… to… wait a sec. Idate couldn't become a chunin because he failed the chunin exams?"

Sakura shrugged. "Yeah, so?"

"When? At what point in the exams can you fail permanently?"

"Er, that question from Ibiki perhaps?"

"No, if you took it you passed."

"…huh. Don't know then."

* * *

"Ah, good. Team Seven, I have an urgent request for you. Apparently, spies of Orochimaru's broke into the village and stole the still traumatized Neji Hyuga. He didn't offer much resistance."

Sakura raised her hand. "Shouldn't that be 'kidnapped'?"

"When someone's that rigid they get stolen. Anyway, they are heading for the village of Hidden Sound in the Land of Rice, you are directed to retrieve him. Support has been requested from Sand but may not arrive in time."

* * *

Jirobo chuckled. "You haven't got a hope of getting out of here, I'll drain your chakra dry!"

The earth dome began to vibrate, then glow red. Jirobo started sweating, seized up and fell backwards.

A pair of monstrous chakra arms burst through the top of the dome of earth, and began tearing pieces off.

The Sound Three split up and began running for it as Naruto tore the dome down.

Sasuke grunted. "You could have done that a lot quicker."

"Yeah, but this way looks better."

"Alright, we need to follow them. If you work out which has the barrel, let us know." Sakura instructed.

"Wait, barrel?" Sasuke frowned.

Naruto explained for him. "One of my clones spotted the barrel just before it popped, they seem to have put Neji in it. Why, I don't know, but it's probably easier to carry him like that."

Sasuke considered. "Okay. Naruto, take the guy with two heads. Sakura, the enemy Kunoichi and I'll handle the freaky arms guy."

* * *

"Our bloodlimit lets us merge with your very body, and-"

Naruto went two-tails, and the violent eruption of Millie's chakra burned Ukon out of his system. Sakon gulped. "Er… what happened to Brother?"

"Not sure, but it looked unpleasant."

"I'll… just be going then." The remaining brother sidled off, and was barely out of sight when he screamed abruptly and fell silent. Kankuro walked into the clearing with his two puppets, one of them reassembling itself after a nasty little finisher.

"Wait… are you the reinforcements?" Naruto asked.

"Yes. Konoha's allies…"

Naruto waited. "That's all you're saying?"

"Basically, yeah. Oh, that reminds me. My siblings are along as well, Temari headed off to the northeast and Gaara went north."

"How _is_ Gaara doing, actually? I heard he was going for Kazekage."

"Yeah. His campaign slogan is "it makes sense, I can use the entire desert as a weapon. Also all the other Kazekage have Ichibi-based powers too, I cut out the middleman."

"Neat. In our case, it seems like every Jinchuuriki has been at the least married to a Kage."

* * *

Tayuya chuckled. "See? I use puppets made of pure chakra, which means there's nothing for you to destroy! And don't think you can sever the animation strings, there aren't any!" She played a few notes, and the hulking monsters ponderously moved to attack Sakura.

Sakura replied by blinking, forming a Rasengan and Replacing with Tayuya's flute.

Temari tree-hopped into the clearing seconds later. "The sand…"

Then she looked around. "Ew."

"Oh, hi Temari. Did you make Chunin?"

"Actually, I did. The council decided that my not fighting Konoha in the invasion was a sign of good forethought, and to be honest I think the prospect of fighting that weapon girl scared them too."

"Neat." Sakura blinked, performed a Water camping technique and cleaned herself of the bits of Sound-nin. "Oh, that's going to make me feel unpleasant for days…"

* * *

Sasuke swung the Raijin in desperate arcs. Kidoumaru was making it rain spiders, spider based weapons and the occasional arrow made of natural Kevlar.

His lovely, lovely, lightning sword helped, as it could absorb anything that happened to be elemental and electrocute anything that wasn't, but even his three (three! At twelve!) tomoe sharingan was barely enough to keep him in the running.

Was this guy made of caffeine or something?

* * *

"Yeah! Feel the wrath of my best equipment loadout, n00b!" Kidoumaru called, before hearing a low voice behind him.

"Shinobi."

An enormous mass of sand landed on him, and he knew no more.

* * *

"You summoned the Shukaku on top of him?" Sasuke asked dubiously.

Gaara stared back. "It worked. Tell your teammate that I desire his address. I hunger… for a pen pal."

"Sure, I'll do that. We better get Neji out of that barrel, though."

* * *

Sasuke carefully sawed at the final slip of paper, wincing as his Sharingan showed an intense flare of chakra from the seal failing. "That was surprisingly hard to open."

"Agreed. That sword of yours was useful for it, though I notice it appears to have cracked slightly in the battle."

Sasuke checked it. Sure enough, there was a tiny nick in the blade. He frowned, then turned the sword off and on again. No nick. "So it can repair, that's handy."

Neji twitched. Sasuke turned to him. "Are you well enough to talk again?"

"AAAAAAA-"

Gaara frowned. "My apologies. I believe the barrel he was in was also under the Shukaku."

* * *

Orochimaru checked the time. "Shouldn't the Sound Four be back by now?"

Kabuto shrugged.

* * *

"How's that flame rasengan going, Sasuke? What about your water one, Sakura?" Naruto asked as he strolled into the new training ground Team Seven had been assigned. Since they were working on technique experimentation and blowing things up alarmingly regularly, the Third had directed them to one of the areas devastated in the invasion.

Sasuke was messing with shape manipulation on the Raijin, trying to get at the source of chakra it represented. A moment's check by Naruto had found that it actually converted Nature chakra, so it was as close to a free weapon as there was. A clone of his was staring at a Rasengan with an active Sharingan, occasionally twitching before sighing.

The original Uchiha looked over. "Hey Naruto. I'm having to use my eye's predictive capabilities to tell when this thing is about to explode, it wastes less shadow clones. If I'm about to do something that makes it blow up, I can just not do that thing."

Sakura frowned. "Isn't that an information paradox? And morning, Naruto."

"The Mangekyo Sharingan is known to be able to warp space enough to form a wormhole, time-paradox isn't actually all that far fetched." Sasuke commented. "Oh, what are you doing?"

Naruto replied with fifteen hundred clones, which spread out across the training grounds and began to explode. "Wind Rasengan. And you, Sakura?"

"I'm actually working on another element rather than going for my first. The last time I got an element, it expanded my available aspects, so I hope I'll be able to maintain a three way split if I develop enough orthogonal powers." She went through a set of seals and produced a fairly pathetic breeze. "Oh, non-native elements are annoying!"

Sasuke frowned. "That's actually pretty good, my eyes ensure the conversion works but the chakra cost goes up a lot for anything not Fire or Lightning."

A muffled boom echoed across the training grounds and Sasuke went cross-eyed. "Clone ran out of chakra from the Sharingan and blew the Rasengan up. That's… let's see… thirty percent of my supply gone? I think we need soldier pills."

"Medic skills?" Sakura mused. "Might be good, plays to my strengths. Hey, Naruto? Think you could get me an in with your great-aunt?"

"You mean Granny Tsunade? Sure, I'll see what I can do." Naruto renewed his clones and pointed to a group of fifty. "Go ask Asuma-sensei about learning more Wind attacks!"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, knowing the Fox code on technique mastery. "You got the Gusty Barrier to the point it's one-seal?"

"Yeah, all those clones using it in Snow were really helpful on that front."

* * *

"You have a stone that channels strange energy?" At Temujin's nod, Sakura rolled her eyes. "Right. Hey, Naruto, Sasuke! This guy's never heard of chakra!"

"It's not chakra! It's Gelel Energy!"

"Oh, really? What does it do?"

"Er… it lets people create illusions, fire blasts of elemental power and regenerate."

Naruto nodded, and casually slit his hand open, holding it up as it steamed and closed. "Chakra."

* * *

"The seal is bound by my blood. If I use it, it will seal the vein… but it means I will surely die."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Right. Gimme a bit of that, I'll get a Shadow Clone to deliver it. Gods, is it just me or is everyone really unimaginative?"

* * *

_Wind._ Sakura thought, trying for the same sense she had before. _Wind dances, flows, cuts and bludgeons. It's the element of finesse, the element of the fine touch and of the vast, seething mass of air that extends above us. In Ice, it is the sharpness. It can be the presence, the absence, or the thin boundary between. It is the most versatile and the rarest. It is Wind._

A wrenching, and the three aspects of Sakura greeted their fourth member, a long-haired girl with a spring in her step and silk clothes that drifted in the lightest breeze.

* * *

"Well… that was… strange?" Sakura said weakly.

"You're telling me. Curry of Life, that ostrich, the Land of Birds, Hidden Star… and I didn't appreciate the whole "Naruto is virulently contagious" incident, either. You know I have so much chakra that if there WAS a virus that turned chakra against the subject, I'd basically explode."

Sasuke looked optimistic. Surprisingly. "Well, here's hoping the next mission is actually interesting. And in a different way to the Chakra Liquid incident."

"Yeah, about that. It took you ten whole minutes to think of using the Raijin on it?"

"What can I say. It was really, really nasty stuff."

* * *

"Team Seven. As one of you has the closest connections to Hidden Sand we have, you're being sent with temporary extras to help save the current frontrunner in their election, Gaara of the Desert."

"If this is to save Gaara, then let's go right now! The others can catch up, right?" Naruto said, then turned to Sasuke. "Can you go and take Niyi on a hawk? Or is it quicker if I use Ichimaru?"

"Calm down, Naruto. The Sand is far enough away that a few minutes one way or another won't make a difference."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "And yet, it always does. Always. Have you ever arrived two hours early to a battle? Or three hours late? It's always minutes."

"Fair point. Alright, off you go."

* * *

Temari fell back from Kujaku, the strange woman's swords allowing her to match the Sand kunoichi's control of the wind. Even her fan, powerful though it was, didn't help enough.

Sasuke arrived on the battlefield clone first, his airdropped shadow clone being reflexively taken out by Kujaku as it arrived… leaving an unstable Flame Rasengan, which promptly blew up and merged with her wind control layers.

Temari winced as the massive fireball engulfed her opponent. "Oh, _brutal._ Is your entire team like this now?"

Sasuke's mount hovered down to head height. "I'm a bit more so than Naruto, Sakura's in the middle. But he still won't tell me how he beat that Sound four member…"

Temari nodded. "Oh, hang on. Looks like the swords survived the explosion."

Sasuke jumped down from his hawk and went over. "Yep, both of them. They're wind natured according to my eyes, and Naruto's wind element. Want one?"

"Sounds good."

"Oh, that reminds me." Sasuke tossed one of the swords to Temari. "Naruto asked us to say this. Suna's allies…"

Temari groaned. "You're never letting us live that down, are you?"

"Naruto might… in a few more years."

* * *

Kankuro sent his remaining puppet around Ryugan in an arc, trying to stay far enough away to avoid the attacks from the Garian Sword.

Ryugan chuckled. "You Sand puppeteers are never good enough to fight on your own! Always relying on your pathetic little puppets!"

Kankuro jumped back from a strike. "Then drop that sword of yours and we'll call it even."

"This sword is one of the prized weapons of the artisans of Takumi village! I will never give it up-"

A javelin pinned his arm to the ground.

Sakura appeared from the trees, flanked by otters. "Nice situational awareness, there."

Ryugan clenched his fists in rage and activated the special mode of his sword again, forming it into a dragon that lunged for Sakura…

And he took a vicious chop to the back of the neck.

Sakura's clone dispersed as the attack reached it. "Looks like my illusions are still up to snuff, too. Who would have thought that a sound displacer would help so much? Oh, and, The leaf…"

Kankuro nodded. "Impressive. I like a good illusion. What was that last one?"

"Cloaking, general purpose. It's transparency, sound displacement and that sort of thing. It means that a lot of the tells that give away a clone aren't there as you're just walking normally while transferring them to the clone."

The puppeteer stroked his chin. "I might try that sometime…"

"Good luck. It takes me an aspect to pull it off."

* * *

Suiko laughed as he saw another person turn up to fight him. The Jinchuuriki of Sand wasn't able to penetrate his Infinite Armour, how could another ninja possibly hurt him?"

Naruto skidded to a halt. "Hey Gaara. What's this guy like?"

"He drains chakra. I think that I do not have enough to overwhelm his armour like you did in the exams."

"Right!" Naruto grinned. "Charge!"

"It is hopeless, my Infinite Armour will… er…" Suiko looked down at his armour as Naruto's one tail state locked him in a bear hug. "Should it be glowing like this?"

Boom!

Bits of Infinite Armour rained down over the battlefield.

"Shinobi!" Naruto said, then noticed another man at the edge of the clearing. "Er, summoning: Death from above!"

Hoki of Takumi blinked, still shocked at seeing the Infinite Armour blow up, then was flattened by a falling Noh.

"Impressive." Gaara commented. "We must retrieve my student. She is likely distraught."

"What, from the kidnapping?"

"No. From not having as much of a chance to fangirl over me."

Naruto blinked. "You have fangirls now?" Then grinned. "Nice work!"

* * *

"So explain to me again why you think taking him out of the village is a good idea?"

Jiraiya gave a winning smile. "It'll give me the opportunity to teach him as much as I know, and to let him get experience in the outer world!"

Sarutobi just stared at his former pupil.

"Oh, fine then, it will also get him out of your village while he works on potentially explosive technique experimentation. With more chakra than most Bijuu to freely access and thousands of clones."

"In that case, approved, approved, get him out of the village until things stop blowing up."

* * *

"Hey, you're Gai, right? Lee's sensei?"

"Yosh! That I am, Naruto Uzumaki! What is it you wish to talk with me about?"

Naruto nodded. "Er, well, I'm off on a training trip soon, and I wondered if you'd be able to teach me how to open the First Gate before I leave."

Gai frowned. "The Gates are extremely damaging. Why do you want to learn?"

"Well, I heal really fast – regenerate, that sort of thing – and my teacher, not Kakashi but my other one, pointed out that muscles grow by being torn and then healing. So if I use the strain of the Gate to tear up my muscles a lot and then regenerate them a lot, I could make myself much stronger."

The Green Beast rubbed his chin. "I can't say I've thought of that one before, but it sounds like a plan. The first gate is the easiest to open, but I doubt you can learn it in a day."

Five hundred Narutos appeared. "I am serious about wanting to learn this, sensei. Hopefully having several hundred clones trying will be enough, as I just need to know how to perform the Primary Lotus."

"Very well. Let us allow your youth to explode!"

One of the shadow clones detonated. Naruto snickered at the shock on Gai's face.

He'd been waiting for that line, and overloaded a Rasengan with wind just to mess with the Jonin.

* * *

"So, your time will be divided into several areas. Your own experimentation, of course, but also my speciality – covert operations and spying – and a better taijutsu style for your specialities and skills. Add to that some elemental techniques in Earth and Wind - you hit the jackpot on that one, by the way, only element you might have trouble with is fire - and finally see if we can get your Jinchuuriki states stabilized above three tails. Ideally you should have the ability to maintain pure chakra cloak up to at least six – the Nanabi jinchuuriki in the last big war managed that – and then also be able to manage the shift into secondary form as low as two."

Naruto nodded. "I do have something of a style, the fox one. It's mainly based on their body form, so not much good in human shape, but it does emphasize tactical thinking and ambush. Never actually get in the fight yourself when the enemy knows it, that sort of thing."

Jiraiya accepted the comment, then replied. "The frog style might fit you as well, if you ever stabilize Sage Mode. It focuses on long distance movement at high speed followed by single devastating attacks – could complement the Fox ambush specialization, actually. One for human form, one for not."

"Sounds good. Now, where are we going?"

Jiraiya frowned. "Er… hm. Why not start with the Land of Water and go on from there, I hear their civil war is over."

* * *

AN: Wow, my first chapter got quite a response. Thanks, guys! This second one takes things up to the limit of the first series, and the third will start Shippuden.

That one may take a while. As should become clear, things are going a bit off the rails.

New summons are Noh, Jo and Ha, the three largest foxes on Naruto's contract. And Sasuke does now have the Raijin permanently, simply because it's one of the many nifty weapons that turns up in filler arcs and the most likeable by his standards.

What I find interesting is that, despite the many things that are original or otherwise derived from extra-canon sources, the two things that are most "broken" are perfectly canonical. Reverse summoning, and the ability of a shadow clone to form a chakra cloak (as seen in the Elemental Training Arc)

Hope you enjoyed!

(If you missed it, there is a set of side stories also on my profile. This is where things not seen in the show go, featuring both my ideas on how events alluded to in passing actually went, and on how they get warped by the butterflies of doom. Currently only has one entry, but more will turn up as they occur to me.)


	3. Chapter 3

"Ah, it's good to be back."

Barely had Naruto said this when a blur of speed arrived next to him, embracing him and leaning on his shoulder.

"I'm so glad you're back, Naruto!"

Naruto frowned. "Wait… is that _Sasuke?_"

"You don't know what it's been like! The Hokage assigned someone called Sai to our team, it's been pure hell! He insults everyone and doesn't show a shred of emotion, he took my place as the stoic one!"

* * *

"So, what have you been up to on that little training trip?" Sakura asked, absently rolling a ball of water across the back of her palm. "Apart from becoming about eight inches taller. And developing muscles."

"Well, for starters, I met your brother again, Sasuke. He said that the core groups for Akatsuki were pretty much finalized, every ring they have is assigned to someone. The last member of the group is one Hidan, formerly of Hot Springs – this is supposed to be the guy who wiped the village out. He's a worshipper of some dark god called Jashin and can't properly die."

Sakura winced. "Ow… that name, the dark god one, felt nasty. Foreboding."

"More of that flashes of insight thing you were getting before I left?"

"Oh, yeah!" Sakura snapped her fingers, and a shower of droplets flew through the air. "It's developing really well, more of an actual sense now. I can sometimes get an idea of what a seal is meant to do before puzzling it out the long way, Tsunade suspects it's because my heritage helps me understand the Celestial tongue, and I can see the chakra fields of active techniques. Still got to refine that some more, but Sasuke's annoyed that I can tell which of his attacks are illusions now. Hinata's actually been a real help on that one, we've been sparring with her team a lot if we need more complex tactical situations. Which reminds me, my aspects shifted a year or so ago. I'm now elementally divided with Earth, Water, Wind and Fire, and Medical chakra is a fifth. Two at a go still seems to be the limit."

Sakura then frowned. "But I keep hearing snatches of music, or song or something. I suppose it would be pretty maddening that I can't quite hear it, but it's pleasant to listen to anyway." She perked up. "But I did manage to stabilize the Water and Fire rasengans, and I'm working on Earth but if you have a good Wind I'll grab that off you first."

"Neat. Anyway, I got down a good library of mid level stuff in my two primary elements, but as you know the important bit for me is always going to be the big booms. Specifically, attacks powerful enough to beat an Akatsuki member without giving up the kind of tactical flexibility a Tail cloak doesn't often allow."

Sasuke nodded slowly. "They're fully aware what tailed beasts and their containers are like, so they'll be ready to fight enemies that are all power, strength and maybe straight line speed. Not mobility and so on."

"Add to that the way they ALL have something that lets them take on an entire village and you approach the truth." Naruto sighed. "You know one of them is so old he actually fought the First? Well, besides Madara, and this guy seems to have come out of it without the massive and crippling damage Madara suffered."

Sakura glanced again at the Akatsuki dossiers. "Some of them clearly have weak spots, but they're going to be heavily guarded. Not much we can do to exploit the predominantly Earth nature of Deidara's clay if he blows us up from a kilometre distance, after all."

Naruto shrugged. "We'll consider that later. Now, I was mentioning things I did. Most of the big ones are Rasengan-based, of course, like how I managed to work with changing the size of it so I can hold one as big as a fridge, or how I finally stabilized the Wind Rasengan – it's throwable, too, you just blit the Wind chakra against your hand to separate it and it goes flying. But something interesting happened when I combined the two, watch."

* * *

The Rasenshuriken… it was beautiful. Sakura and Sasuke watched in awe as a shadow clone rammed it into the enormous stone target in the experimentation area.

The impact broke the stability of the technique, and it detonated.

The two were using their enhanced perception abilities to get a proper handle on what was happening, and it was just astonishing. They saw the vortex of wind come apart into innumerable blades of pure chakra that, simply put, diced everything down to the size of dust.

It was possibly the most perfect expression of Wind chakra they had ever seen.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head as it faded. "Eh… still not complete. At least one more thing to add to it, possibly two – I want to be able to throw it like the Wind Rasengan, and see if I can put another chakra type in there while keeping it stable. Heh, if you manage to put fire into it too, Sasuke, what we might get then is just stupendous."

"Either that or we _blow up the village._" Sasuke muttered.

"Hm, good point."

"Any reason you're not using that Soaring Short Sword I got for you in Sand, by the way?"

Naruto shrugged. "I'm not one for swords really anyway, not to mention that… well… I kinda blew it up."

Sakura sighed. "How?"

"It converts chakra. So I channelled chakra into it. Lots and lots of chakra."

"Right, say no more."

"I did find these though." Naruto revealed a pair of tri-prong kunai from his pouch. "Jiraiya wasn't a help, the Thunder God seals on this are the most ludicrously complex I've ever seen."

"Where did you get them?" Sasuke asked, interested.

"We went all over the place. Visited the sight of Dad's great battles and found a couple left. I think one of them is from Stone and the other is left over from a battle on the outskirts of the village proper – that one must be from his engagement with Madara. He never bothered to clean them up much."

Sakura took a look, and winced. "You're not kidding on the complexity. I feel like a book tried to get into my head through my retina all at once. Give me one of them and a month, and I might get something useful out of it."

Naruto nodded. "No problem. Not as if they're exactly secret, he made thousands."

* * *

"So. Same team layout as normal?"

Naruto shrugged. "Either of you made Jonin, by the way? Because that could be important. Otherwise, yeah, whoever has the best plan calls the shots."

Sakura shook her head. "We're still Chunin, they want everyone that highly ranked to at least have hit sixteen. They hope it'll prevent us being as screwed up as Kakashi or Gai."

"Not much chance there…" Naruto muttered.

"That said, Tenten is tipped for it at the next slate of promotions, and Hinata has the skills. Shika might be considered, but it was enough effort to get him to accept the _first_ promotion. I swear he only went to the finals because they didn't have a prelim…"

Naruto grinned. "Sounds like him. How's Hinata doing, again?"

"Few confidence issues, but they're nothing to what she used to have. That promotion before you left really helped out, and she's been experimenting with the Gentle Fist loads. Remember the Kaiten?"

Naruto nodded.

"She made a version of it that cuts whatever is inside to bits. She's even working on projectile mode with that Gentle Step thing of hers, and get this. She got a hair animation technique off Tsunade last year, and she's actually worked out how to project a Gentle Fist strike with her hair."

Sasuke sighed. "And I thought long hair was a sign of poor planning…"

Sakura sniggered. "So did her dad. Said she wasn't quite skilled enough yet to allow the handicap of a long, free hairstyle. Then she disabled his entire arm in a single strike with it. Oh, but I forgot, you don't know how everyone else is doing. Everyone in the Konoha Twelve made Chunin. Kiba's angling for his elements to qualify for Jonin, Shino's… well, Shino. Team Ten are pretty much average members of their clans with the skills of someone five years older, Lee's still obsessive about his training – I swear he's breaking the sound barrier sometimes – and Neji seems to have recovered from that whole trauma thing."

Naruto nodded. "Wait, you said Tenten and Hinata are skilled enough for Jonin? Any idea what their elements are?"

Sakura nodded. "Both of them have water, though Tenten tends to use it in blade channelling to let her use even more ludicrously big weapons and Hinata as a chakra conduction medium for her more arcane stuff. Tenten also has fire, and Hinata developed her wind enough to make her Kaiten variants even _worse_."

"How?"

"Let's just say some of them aren't defences any more. I still have the memories of being inside her Heavenly Razor Whirlwind…"

Naruto thought about it, and winced. "Kaiten with pure wind-nature chakra?"

"Yep. I know that almost anything gets a Shadow clone, but that move powderized a log."

* * *

"Team Kakashi, you're needed along with Team Gai to render aid to Sand. Apparently some S-ranked Missing Nin attacked the village, kidnapped the Kazekage and poisoned one of their Jonin. Kankuro, it says."

Naruto swore. "Damn, I'm not back in Konoha a day and Gaara gets himself kidnapped again? If this is going to be a regular thing with me-in-Konoha, maybe we should go on another training trip."

Sarutobi sighed. "I'm only telling you what the message said. You better get going, knowing Gai he'll make it a race."

* * *

Sakura blinked, and shifted her aspects to medic/water. "Sasuke, get me some water, boil it. Naruto, I might need a chakra transfusion later, this poison is nasty. For now, make sure you have all my equipment to hand. Tenten, do you have any blood pills in your equipment stock? It'll be easier to purge this stuff if I can just get rid of some of the blood with it. Neji, let me know if his vitals change."

The Sand-ninja watched with some awe as what had been a pair of ready combat ninja teams changed seamlessly into a makeshift hospital staff.

Lee noticed their gaze, and gave a thumbs-up. "The training given to us by the most youthful Tsunade of the Sannin includes medical cross-education. I am a qualified trauma medic and always carry extra bandages."

Temari adjusted her weaponry. "Well… thanks. Oh, Naruto? Didn't your teammate give you the other one of these swords?

Naruto shrugged. "Yeah, but I have several times your other brother's chakra on tap. I pretty much blew it up. I do that a lot."

* * *

Sakura wiped her forehead. "Right, he's out of danger. This poison's vicious stuff, but I've inverted the nature of it with a medical technique. We have enough for about a dozen antidote doses."

"You actually managed to turn the poison into its' own antidote?" Temari said, shocked.

"Yeah, it's a relatively simple concept. You analyze its' effects and then, if it's a chakra-enhanced poison like this is, invert the chakra component. What you're left with is something that binds to the same receptors and serves to have the exact opposite effect. Too much of one or the other is of course still fatal but match the doses and you're golden."

Sasuke shook his head. "And I'm supposed to be the one who finds complicated things simple…"

"You seem a lot more social, Sasuke." Naruto commented absently as they disassembled the medical equipment.

"Blame Sai. I wanted to be different from him in as many ways as possible."

* * *

Team Seven squinted at Itachi's feet.

Naruto spoke up. "Something I've always wondered. Why do you and the shark guy go around as part of the same team, anyway?"

Itachi barely moved. "Kisame and myself form something of a double act. It's a Bokke and Tsukuyomi routine."

Sakura stifled a laugh, then realized that she'd happened to catch the reflection of Itachi's eyes as he said that.

"Exactly." He added, as she fell into darkness.

* * *

Sakura looked at her surrounds – an illusion world formed from one of Itachi's stupendous techniques. She tried a dispel – to no avail - then her eyes widened as if in understanding. Taking heart somehow, she stared back down at her captor.

"So, Sharingan illusions are the strongest, right?"

"Yes." Itachi nodded gravely. "This one has no counter, and disrupting your chakra does not work as the illusion takes place entirely in your mind. You cannot disrupt your chakra network from inside the illusion."

Sakura smiled. "Then I have no worries. This technique has a disadvantage. It's that it can only target one person at a time."

"So?"

"You don't know much about me, Itachi Uchiha. I am Sakura Haruno, born to civilians of no import in the great interplay of the world. Yet I am of divine heritage, and I possess a form of True Sight. I have the blood of gods on both sides. I am not one, but many."

At that point, someone punched Itachi in the back. As he turned, the entrapment fell and released the girl from her illusory bonds.

He was confronted with four near-identical copies of Sakura, each with different eyes. Aquamarine and sky blue, orange and deep brown.

The fifth, with bright green eyes, cracked her knuckles. "Aspects, Itachi. I have five, and my soul is strong enough to support them in tandem. My mind is a fortress against invaders." Something came to her, and the next sentence was not spoken, but sung in a tongue that sounded like music, the meaning of the alien syllables somehow inherent in their very nature.

"_I am the legacy of the gods._ And you do not belong here."

The world dissolved.

* * *

Naruto turned to Sakura as she staggered. "What happened?"

"He caught me in his illusions. I broke it with my bloodline, watch out though."

Naruto shrugged. "I'm not as worried, Millie can break any illusion on me by scrambling her Youkai. Point taken, though, with that one it might be hours of subjective time before she noticed."

Sasuke hissed through his teeth. "I just caught it – that's some kind of clone technique!"

Sakura channelled her gold chakra, activating her True Sight. "There we go, yeah, I wasn't looking deep enough. Some self contained Jonin-level chakra supply there, instead of Itachi proper."

"Right." With a pop, Naruto (clearly a shadow clone) disappeared.

Kakashi glanced behind Itachi, and blanched. "Everyone down!"

Itachi's copy barely had the time to turn in shock as a flurry of Wind Rasengan flew in from every direction and shredded him.

Sakura jogged over to the mess. "Akatsuki robe, missing torso, face looks like a not-Itachi person. Really, Naruto, _twelve_ elemental Rasengan?"

Naruto shrugged. "I didn't know how good he was at dodging."

His eyes then flickered.

"And one of my clones reported that Team Gai are fighting Kisame, or a lookalike of him at least. I suggest you get ready for a Reverse Summon, I need you to check which it is."

"Does it matter?"

"Samehada is a separate entity to Kisame, and if he can't block elemental attacks I can pull the same Rasengan Blizzard trick on him."

Sakura nodded, and vanished.

* * *

Three clones stood in a neat row, holding the Water Prison technique on the Chunin of Team Gai. Tenten was flailing around trying to reach a linen storage scroll that wouldn't fall apart in the water prison, Lee was trying to break out by evaporating the water off, and Neji was staying calm and running his Byakugan on high power, straining to see any potential opening.

Sakura materialized on a rock. "Whoo, that's a rush. Okay, that chakra source is barely three times normal Jonin level. That's _not_ Kisame."

Naruto nodded, and dispelled, Niyi with him. Another clone next to her began forming a Wind Rasengan. "Sakura, you get the others out of the Water Prisons."

"On it. Tagg, Mij, Tarka, Marlene, run interference for me."

Her four summoned Otters nodded determinedly and plunged into the water, all except Marlene who readied an Atlatl.

Sakura then blinked once, going from Medical to Earth. "I plan on using his own terrain to get close to the Water clones, then a spread of blasting tags. Naruto, anything you can have your clones do?"

The clone tossed her a kunai. "That's another of me, he'll fire off a Great Breakthrough on the line you throw him."

"Really?" Sakura switched Earth to Fire. "Then I think we can blast the clones without harming any allies, I'll just throw a Fire tech and let the clone boost it."

* * *

The three water clones were focused mainly on supporting the prison techniques. One of their captives was thrashing wildly and almost breaking the water bubble, another kept unsealing increasingly long polearms and that clone had to expand the prison to compensate, and the third was trying to use the Gentle Fist to break the enhanced surface tension and pop the bubble.

Thus it was with a certain surprise that a clone noticed the javelin sticking out of his sternum.

A hail of other weapons followed, the damaged clone still cohesive enough to dodge them along with the rest and maintain the prison, but the battle was abruptly over when a roaring blast of wind-boosted fire carved the water clones away from the prisons and dispersed them.

Sakura skated across the water to a halt. "Hey guys, all of you OK?"

Tenten nodded. "I gave everyone oxygen pills as soon as the swordsman summoned a lake." Her arm shot out to grab Lee and prevent him falling in the water. "How many times, Lee? Pure fighting spirit is admirable, but it does not allow you to defy physics quite so casually as Chakra."

Behind Sakura a massive blast of power erupted. She spun to look at it, and heard Tenten muttering behind her.

"_Six_ gates? Oh, come on, Sensei. That's just overkill."

_Six gates? Must be the Inner Gates of taijutsu fame._ Sakura once more switched her non-water aspect to Medical, strengthened her Sight, and watched closely as Gai beat the faux-Kisame to death.

It was amazing. His body was moving so fast it set the air itself on fire.

Huh. And it looked like the attacks were based off physical effect rather than chakra. That would be useful if she ever fought _another_ chakra drainer.

She hurried over to the site of the battle, forming off a clone to examine the non-Kisame, and scanned Gai for any after effects of the use of the Gates.

"Gai, how has your body not imploded from that?" She asked absently. "Lee was badly strained last time he opened the third."

"My constant training is intended no longer to make me stronger!" Gai explained. "It is to make it so I can withstand the immense strain of the Eight Gates! My body has the experience of my age combined with the spirit and endurance of youth!"

She nodded. "Now, see, if I ever have to open the gates I'd just flood my body with healing chakra to minimize the damage."

"A most youthful approach!"

Three Naruto's appeared across the lake. "Aww, Gai, you got him first. Sakura, we're moving out, one of Kakashi's summons found the trail."

"Gai's still capable of movement, don't ask me how, so lead on."

* * *

Neji extended his senses. "Four. There are four seals in addition to this one on the cavern wall."

Sakura, meanwhile, had been examining said seal. "This thing is nasty. It's going on about 'punishment for the breaker' and 'defeated by their own power'. I hope it's not another damn chakra drainer…"

Naruto formed another set of clones. "I'll get a clone to take each of the seal tags off, and one of Team Gai can follow to make sure nothing too bad happens."

* * *

Earth, water, rock or grass mounded up to form a copy of the Naruto-clone who had taken the seal off.

Gai and Lee's fists, Neji's palm and Tenten's ballistic cannonball destroyed the duplicates before they finished forming.

* * *

Naruto shrugged. "That was anticlimactic."

Sakura nodded as the dust cleared, then the inside of the cave became apparent.

A great, chained statue with a person on each finger but one. Glowing, blue dragons of chakra enveloping the Kazekage. And all but two Akatsuki members were transparent.

Sasuke's eyes flicked across the assembled members. _Itachi, Kisame, Konan, Yahiko (with Rinnegan), Deidara, Sasori, Zetsu, Hidan, Kakuzu. No Madara._ His Sharingan activated. _And apparently this is more than a normal illusion – it's still there to these eyes._

Sakura gasped. _That statue is just… evil. Or maybe not evil, but alien. There's orange-yellow youkai draining into it from Gaara – it's extracting his Bijuu? – but the statue also contains two other types. White and green, by the looks of it._

Naruto threw a Wind Rasengan at the statue, blowing a crater out of it, but it healed itself in moments. Before he could do any more, the last of Gaara's youkai entered the statue and the half-real phantom vanished, leaving behind two of the criminal gang and a dead Gaara.

There was a _whump_ of displaced air as Naruto dropped straight into his two-tails state.

Deidara grinned. Three times. "Oh, you want the Kazekage? Too bad, you'll have to catch it first!"

A clay bird erupted from the ground, engulfing Gaara and carrying Deidara out of the now open cave mouth. Naruto grimaced and gave chase, Sasuke after him summoning hawks.

Kakashi spent a moment looking at Sasori, then apparently decided that his female student and the amazingly old Chiyo could handle him and took after the others.

* * *

Sasuke flew alongside Naruto's running form. "Naruto! Drop the cloak and get onto Hayabusa here!"

Glancing sideways and seeing that Sasuke had indeed summoned a bird large enough to carry them both after the flying Deidara, Naruto let his cloak disperse and jumped aboard.

The peregrine summoned a tailwind and soared up into the sky, Sasuke already firing sizzling bolts of lightning from his Raijin.

Deidara snarled. _I can't just blow them up because the damn Jinchuuriki's cloak is down and he's right next to the summoner! Leader made it very clear that he'd give me back to Iwa if I killed a container before extraction. Damn it…_

He compromised with a shower of clay birds and bats, before taking out a storage scroll and dropping one of his C-3 bombs off the side of his bird.

* * *

Kakashi, racing along after the aerial dogfight, spotted the bomb – easily recognizable from the description given by Sand-nin - begin to fall. Wincing in anticipation, he uncovered his Sharingan eye and focused.

"Kamui."

A full quarter of his chakra vanished instantly to pay the demands of his voracious Mangekyo, which caught the falling bomb and sent it to who-knew-where.

* * *

A Chidori Senbon shower caught the wings of the clay bird, neutralizing the earth chakra in its' construction and sending it into a dive.

Naruto made a pair of clones who Replaced themselves with the main body of the now-inert construct, and several more that began tearing it apart to get to Gaara.

With a curse, Deidara unsealed a scroll full of clay and began making a new bird, intent on getting away now his pursuers were distracted.

* * *

Sakura, meanwhile, focused herself on the puppeteer in front of her. To her sight, it was clear that the true enemy was not the shell she could see, but another, tiny chakra source within. More than that she couldn't tell.

Sasori opened things by lashing out with his poisoned tail.

Chiyo tutted and jumped back, an explosion a second later severing the tail halfway up the length. "Still, Sasori, you have that problem in splitting your attention between attacking and watching what your opponents' chakra strings are doing."

Sakura shot off a fire/wind technique that looked like a comet and scorched a line along the outer shell of the puppet, and turned to the old woman. "Don't offer him tips!"

"You wound me, being so disrespectful of your elders and betters."

A water technique, this time, dousing a storage scroll and ruining it before it could be opened controllably. "I know someone at least ten times older than you and he still appreciates criticism. Stop playing on it."

Sakura switched an aspect back to fire and rode out a gush of napalm by using her innate fire resistance in that state, that allowing her to make the liquid simply roll off her skin.

Chiyo's chakra strings lashed out, taking a piece of the floor and throwing it at the Hiruko puppet's face to intercept a blizzard of senbon. "And again. I don't know why you keep making these elementary mistakes when facing another puppeteer, grandson." With a clang, the senbon launcher was bent by the rock and rendered useless.

Hiruko's left arm launched out and started firing senbon needles.

Sakura created a Gusty Barrier in front of both herself and her ally. "Elder Chiyo, what is it with puppet users and senbon?"

"Ammunition issues, mainly. We never seem to remember the simple way that kunai can be stored in storage scrolls."

That conversation was interrupted by Hiruko charging forward, apparently to attempt a close combat attack.

Sakura glanced around in case there was some kind of Akatsuki spy left to report on her moves, then formed a keening Flame Rasengan and forced it into the puppet with a backlash of plasma.

Sasori tumbled from the flaming wreck and stabilized himself. "Impressive… you destroyed my eighteenth puppet. I think I'll kill you first."

His opponent frowned. "Shouldn't that be favourite?"

"Same difference." He unsealed a puppet version of the Third Kazekage with a lightning movement, and began to form the Iron Sand with it.

Sakura's jaw dropped. "How the hell does that even work? Controlling hidden mechanisms is one thing, but I know from Gaara that sand manipulation like that is an entirely mental art!"

Sasori shrugged. "It works, so I don't question it." A stream of iron bullets began to shoot towards Sakura, who wrapped herself in a vortex of wind-boosted flame and was gratified to see that the fire could melt the bullets out of being sand – and apparently demagnetized them in the process.

One of the bullets that hit her tingled faintly. Sakura picked it up, and smelled something that she couldn't quite identify. She dashed behind a rock and dropped the flame vortex briefly, switching aspects to re-enable her medical side.

A quick sniff confirmed it. "Elder Chiyo! The sand is soaked in poison!"

Chiyo was protecting herself from it by this point with a large slab of rock from the floor of the cavern. "Well then, little miss, please sort it out! Tsunade's protégé you may be, but you might nevertheless be capable of handling something as simple as that!"

Sakura dropped back into true-sight, and took one of her prepared antidote jabs. Bringing up an armour of earth around herself and maintaining the medical aspect for some chakra scalpels, she lunged forward from the rock in a precisely targeted Body Flicker.

A quick dance of scalpels severed all the chakra strings directing the Third Kazekage, and Sakura summoned three otters with one simple command: steal this.

With a pop of displaced air, the Kazekage puppet vanished from the land of Wind.

Sasori clicked irritably. "You already destroyed Hiruko… now you stole my eighteenth puppet?"

Sakura landed lightly. "You really need that speech impediment sorted out. And how can you claim two puppets as your favourite, anyway?"

"Hiruko was my favourite. That one really was my eighteenth."

"Oh. Fair enough, then."

"Regardless… to show you the true reason I am a member of Akatsuki, we need a little more space." Snapping his fingers, he detonated explosives all over the cavern and brought down the roof.

* * *

Sakura emerged from the ground with an Underground Move technique and saw Chiyo bring out ten puppets from a storage scroll to defend her.

Sasori's cloak was gone from the avalanche, revealing him in all his glory. As a puppet.

Sakura couldn't help but snicker. "Wow, I've heard of body sculpting but that really goes a little too far. Tell me, do you have to worry about termites?"

"Enough! Observe… my performance of a hundred puppets!"

"A hundred and forty three."

Sasori looked thrown. "What?"

"I'm good at counting fast. There are a hundred and forty three puppets there. And is it me, or are all of them connected by chakra strings directly to that tiny bit of your chest that is the only thing with actual living chakra?"

Chiyo looked over to Sakura. "He's still alive?"

"Only the thing in his chest. Want to bet it's his heart, forebrain and life support system?"

The elder turned faintly green. "That's disturbing even to me."

Sasori fired a stream of ultra-high-pressure water at Sakura. "You will pay for exposing me."

"Thanks for the confirmation!" Sakura threw a quick V-sign, then Flickered away from the attack and started punching puppets.

_Big sword, sort of cleaver shaped, must remember to find that for Tenten… That one has glasses, weird… wait, those two have the _Sharingan?_ How is that supposed to work?_ She punched both of them extra hard, destroying the mummified eyes completely.

Chiyo noticed that, over the course of the battle, the pink-haired girl was keeping herself in the air by way of recoil. And that she was gradually pushing forwards to reach Sasori.

"Girl's smart, too…" she chuckled to herself, noting that one of her puppets had been destroyed by one of Sasori's. _What that boy was thinking when he made a puppet absolutely full of napalm…_

_Well, I suppose it did end up working._

Sakura performed another summon technique as she was hidden in the blast of smoke from a twentieth puppet. By now, she was noticing a gradual acceleration in the remaining puppets and decided to end it ASAP.

Taking a javelin from the otter she'd summoned, she dismissed him once more and threw it as hard as she possibly could at Sasori himself.

"Elder Chiyo!" she called as she descended, "the fewer puppets he has, the more he can focus on them!"

The Elder nodded. "I see it, girl. He'll be better than me if he dips below sixty."

* * *

Sasori cursed. The javelin had come in at a startling speed, and though he'd been moving to dodge, it still hit him in the leg and nailed him to the floor.

"It's over!" Sakura yelled at him, bringing up a Flame Rasengan and ramming it into his torso. She then Replaced herself with a nearby puppet and let the Rasengan destabilize.

Just to be thorough. Because just ramming a Rasengan into the opponent and expecting that to work was Naruto style.

Chiyo panted, stumbling as the effort of the intense battle got to her. "Sakura… do you have any more of that antidote? I took a couple of senbon during the battle."

"Only one vial, but that should be-"

One of the puppets reactivated and caught Sakura in the thigh with an arrow.

Chiyo gasped. "That's not the core puppet, what- oh, no. Sakura! His heart capsule escaped!"

Sakura turned, her medical aspect taking note of the poison already entering her system, and launched Sasori's original body at his new one. On fire.

The heart capsule jumped bodies again, though Sasori appeared unable to split his attention enough to re-establish control of additional puppets.

The elder grimaced. "I had hoped I wouldn't have to use these…" She took a storage scroll and _stamped_ on it, unsealing the pair of puppets known as the Mother and Father. "Sakura! Take out his unused puppet bodies!"

Stumbling slightly, Sakura formed Naruto's favourite handseals and created two shadow clones. The drain left her gasping, but she could cope – it was mainly thanks to the way she'd overloaded the clones with chakra. "Both of you go fire and wind, I'm splitting off my medic and water aspects from normal usage to concentrate on this damn poison."

The clones nodded, concerned, and jumped away to begin incinerating the remaining puppets.

Sakura herself winced. Creating a split between the aspects her shadow clones used and that her main body was using was _really hard, damnit_, leaving her feeling like her soul was being pinched in half, but she didn't have a choice. She had got a _massive_ dose of the poison and had to fix that, but Sasori's puppets weren't really destroyable from range short of fire-wind attacks.

After a few minutes trying to stop the poison leaving her femoral vein and pushing as much tainted blood to the wound as possible, she felt her split ease and looked up.

Most of the landscape was on fire. Sasori was in a backup copy of his original body, impaled by the Mother and Father.

Chiyo left them in that tableau and hurried over. "Sakura! Are you okay?"

"Ergh… damnit, this really hurts. I think I could normally pull through, but I don't have the chakra left to fight the poison. I didn't realise how damn _much_ there was when I made the clones."

The elder then formed a set of chakra strings, rummaged through Sakura's supply pouch, found the antidote and injected her with it forcibly. Her eyes widened. "Elder-"

"Save it. I'm so old I'm mistaking people for their parents, Sakura, whereas you've got so much longer to live. Besides, the Kazekage is dead and we need him." She cackled to herself, the tone somehow melancholy. "Who'd have thought it. Me, old mad Chiyo, making the supreme sacrifice… Ah well. At least this way I don't have to let the poison kill me."

Sakura sighed, and struggled to her feet. "I've got hardly any stamina of my own left."

"Easy!" She crowed, and attached chakra strings to Sakura. "Now I can help a young lady across the stream! Bet you thought it was going to be the other way around when you saw me, didn't you?"

Chiyo captured another, large, puppet in her strings and animated it. "Any idea where those teammates of yours are?"

Sakura sat back, full of deep fatigue, and opened her eyes to the world. It was easier now most of her chakra was expended, actually, but since she was getting a hazy feeling on the edges of her mind as her senses expanded, that probably wasn't good.

Then she saw the sun-bright blaze of Naruto's chakra. "North by East, eight miles."

* * *

Naruto and the male members of his team stood sadly over Gaara's body.

Team Gai arrived, having failed to catch Deidara. Gai looked down at the boy.

"I am truly sorry that one still so youthful has been taken from us."

Lee nodded, tears streaming down his face.

Naruto reached down, and made to pick up the Kazekage. "We'd better take him back for burial."

"Hey!" came a rasping shout. "Don't do that yet! I haven't done my noble sacrifice yet!"

The ninja all spun to see Chiyo approaching on a puppet, Sakura sat next to her.

"Sakura! You're okay!"

She nodded weakly. "Somehow…"

The elder stepped down from her 'chariot'. "Now, then. He's mostly intact, so this should work. If I recall correctly, the extraction of a Tailed Beast is fatal mainly as it rips the soul loose from the body. No real damage apart from that… nope." She began making handseals.

"Elder, what are you doing?" Kakashi asked, recognizing only some of what was happening but not liking it.

"It's a resurrection technique. The Puppet Brigade invented it, with my help, to restore life to humans made into puppets or act as a healing technique." She laid her hands on Gaara, frowning at the pale blue glow. "Mind feeding more chakra into the technique, someone? Ah, you'll do, the other Jinchuuriki. Anyway, it got labelled a forbidden technique because if you used it to resurrect, you promptly died. The Puppet Brigade used to be much larger…"

Sakura raised herself with some effort, struggling to see. "But why? Elder, why are you giving your own life like this?"

"I'm dying anyway from Sasori's poison, aren't I? I may as well."

Tenten gave an embarrassed grin. "We have about ten more vials of the antidote spread over our team."

"Shut up! Don't spoil my noble sacrifice!"

The pinkette raised her hand. "I think I could send an aspect into death to get Gaara's soul back, and then just re-create-"

"Shut up shut up shut up! I _want_ a noble sacrifice, and I am _getting_ one!"

"But the rules are slacker for me because I'm part-"

"Right! I don't have to listen to any more of this!"

Chiyo rammed her remaining chakra into the technique and collapsed.

Gaara slowly sat up. "What happened? Last I remember was making sure Suna didn't get blown to pieces by a clay-bomb in the kiloton range."

He then looked around. "And where did all the people come from?"

Naruto glanced away from Gaara. "Gah!"

The entire population of the village of Suna was standing around them in the meadow.

"What…but… how? We're practically to Fire country!"

"The Fifth Kazekage is beloved by his people."

Sakura moved painfully. "And you! You're supposed to be in hospital recovering from poison!"

Kankuro winced. "Er…"

"And as for all the civilians… _how_?"

Temari shrugged. "They insisted."

"Excuse me… but what happened while I was unconscious?"

"And dead…" Naruto muttered to himself.

"Well, basically, Akatsuki got you, stole your Bijuu and killed you in the process, then Team Kakashi, Team Gai and Elder Chiyo managed to save your body, kill Sasori of the Red Sands and the Elder resurrected you."

"So. They have Shukaku, then?"

Naruto nodded. "Sucked the ol' tanuki right out of you and into their weird-as-hell statue. We think," here he crouched closer to Gaara and threw up a wind wall around the conversation to prevent eavesdroppers, "They're trying to put all the Bijuu back together to make the Ten-Tails."

Gaara quirked an eyebrow, cut his palm and flipped through some handseals.

Shukaku rematerialized on the nearest clear space.

Naruto stared for a second, then fell over laughing his head off.

Kakashi signalled to Baki. "I think the events of the last minute are to be considered an S-rank secret."

"I agree."

* * *

Sasuke strode over to his team mates. "We need to talk."

"Oh? About what?"

"I spent a month last year on the Eyries of the Plains. We need to pool what we know, and what our summons can tell us, about Akatsuki and that statue."

Sakura nodded. "I can see the sense in that. We know so little about the world beyond mere humanity, after all. Where should we meet up?"

Naruto snapped his fingers. "I know! We can use the Forest of Confusion! Or mystery, but that's mainly because foxes are like that."

"Elaborate."

"Can you see anyone eavesdropping who we don't invite?"

Considering this, Sasuke nodded. "Fair enough, but I want to bring in one of my main contracted summons to share his perspective. Are the foxes going to be okay with that?"

"I'll check. Mandias!"

The old arctic cricked his neck. "Afternoon. What's up?"

"We need to talk about stuff that's very nearly as old as you. Can we use the forest? And can Sasuke bring a hawk?"

"No problem. Your teammates are contracted to… Aya and Ohki, for Sasuke, and Niyi for Sakura, right?"

Sasuke nodded. Sakura added a "Yes."

"Right. I'll get Lani to put the tea on."

* * *

"We confirmed that the public leader of Akatsuki does indeed have the Rinnegan, though he looks quite different to the person who Jiraiya of the toads says possessed it at that time – in fact, he resembles the boy who was the teammate of the old Rinnegan bearer and Konan. Also, they extracted the Ichibi from his container by way of a large statue, with nine eyes and a mouth locked open. The form of extraction was illusiory dragons, which drained the youkai from the jinchuuriki using their own chakra as a power source. This killed the jinchuuriki by expending their life by the end."

Sasuke and Naruto looked to Sakura, impressed. "You got all that from a four second look?"

"I'm good at insight, and I was running my Sight. Anyway, the dragons themselves had no chakra at all. That can't be normal, right?"

A slightly harsh voice answered them. "No. It sounds like that was a directly soul-based attack."

Mandias shifted himself, and looked to the fifth member of the group. Sasuke had summoned the small hawk by name, and everyone present knew that he had to be more than he seemed due to the _vast_ chakra cost of the summoning – in fact, it was on par with a boss summon.

"I'm unsure what I can contribute on that angle, except to mention that the last time I encountered a soul-based attack was in the annals about the powers of the Sage of Six Paths himself. One of the Six Paths referred to involves delving the knowledge of any being by direct assault on the soul, another can exact fatal penalties for lying – soul destruction – while the Treasured Tools, artefacts from that era, can attack the Word Soul."

"So we may surmise that the statue is either an artefact from the time of the Sage or created using formerly lost knowledge. Thank you, Sage Initiate Tobias." Mandias then turned to the three chunin. "I should make it clear, the Sage of Six Paths was on a level beyond anything you have experienced. If one of your foes possesses the Rinnegan, they are extroadinarily dangerous. Allow me to put it into perspective."

"None of you are entirely human. Naruto's chakra, his essential being, is approximately one percent golden and two percent Youkai. This is on the level of contamination normally, but grants him the power to transcend the limitations of the human form by shapeshifting, regenerate, live a longer life as with all his clan, and potentially other super-human feats of chakra – the first two Uzumaki containers of Millie used their chakra to form solid, real world objects, while the First Hokage, a distant relative of theirs, could use the Wood release – in fact, could create _life._ Normally, the effect of mixing earth and water should be much more mundane, something like a facsimilie of wood, or sterile wood, or generally speaking a more mobile form of earth. But as the great forest of Fire country proves, he holds the power to create life in truth."

"Sasuke, meanwhile, has one percent black chakra. This is entirely bound up in his eyes, as with all Uchiha, and lets him break the normal rules of humanity in different ways. He can memorize things with no issues, make deductive leaps when it comes to kinaesthetic learning on having just _barely_ the information required, and predict the future by the barest second. He also holds the potential to unlock the Mangekyo like his brother, which can potentially create fire beyond normal fire, cause rips in space and time, form a solid object with chakra alone – the Susano'o – as well as attack the mind with a glance. I am sure you see the theme – all these powers go beyond what normal humans are capable of."

Mandias then turned to Sakura. "Sakura, here, is another example. Her divine heritage is not fixed, as both of you are, but fluid since her parents both posess the vestigial touch of a different deity. She has to mold it herself – but the effects are already becoming clear. Amazingly fast technique mastery, the ability to manifest contradictory powers, instinctive understanding of written Celestial, and an aspected soul."

Sakura raised her hand. "I had a strange experience, actually. When I broke Itachi's illusion, words sort of… came to me. A single short line, in another language… but I could still understand it. And now, the music I've heard in my head for quite a while – some of it makes sense."

"Oh? What was this other language like?"

"Sung. Beautiful, musical, like every syllable was a world of meaning."

"Can you remember it now enough to repeat it?"

"I'll try."

Sakura closed her eyes and meditated on that exact moment, listening for the verses in her soul. She heard it every few minutes, so…

_There._

"_I am the legacy of the gods."_

Mandias' jaw dropped. "That… well, well. That, young lady, was the _spoken_ form of Celestial."

"Hang on… some of the words I understand are the same as the ones in later parts of that music. Mainly pronouns, but it means I can tell the cadence. There are nine lines, two pairs of them shorter than the rest."

Tobias clicked his beak. "Soul aria."

"I agree." Mandias then sighed heavily. "Sakura, you've just started down the path few ever even find. The route to your True Name. They're always in Celestial, and come at the end of a verse about the truth of your soul. That your entire verse is in Celestial may be a result of your heritage."

"Is that good, or bad?"

"Good. Very good. If someone else knows your true name and you don't, then you have quite a problem, but if you know your own… oh, it's the basis to so many things."

Naruto grinned. "Do you know yours?"

"Yes. My true name is _Ozymandias_." The word hung in the air, speaking of might and renown, of a glory in all things, and of rememberance and forgetting. Of age, dimming a light yet never letting it entirely go out.

The jinchuuriki grinned. "I remember the stories you told me last year. You were a hero alright, several hundred years ago."

"Indeed. But we went off topic. I have mentioned Sakura's many abilities, including the first line of her Soul Aria at quite a startlingly young age, to underscore a point. After three years of expanding the divinity of her soul by developing more and more aspects, her chakra is about five percent golden. This is frankly remarkable, and it is my estimate that she will ascend to some rank of divinity before dying of old age."

"The Sage of Six Paths was at most fifty percent human."

Silence filled the room. After a moment, Sasuke raised his voice.

"Did you say at _most_?"

"Yes. Exactly. The Sage invented chakra use, was able to fight and defeat the Ten-tails – a beast more powerful by a factor of about two than Millie – seal it into himself and, upon his deathbed, split it into fragments, endowed them with sentience and created the moon to hide the Ten-tails' body."

The three just sat there.

After about a minute, Tobias let out a loud screech.

Naruto pitched forward onto his nose. "Ow! What was that for?"

"You'd all stopped responding. I felt it was a good idea to check you could still think."

* * *

"What's with the chalkboard?"

Naruto finished setting it up in the Training Ground. "We need to know what moves Akatsuki either do or could know we have. Those are ones they'll be expecting."

"Right, gotcha." Sakura went to the board and noted down her enhanced strength, medical skill and a number of complex elemental techs including the flame Rasengan, then added her aspects in the "maybe" column with most of the elemental techniques.

"What about your summons?"

"Oops, forgot. I used them against Kisame and Sasori, but both were pretty quick. They might not know… nah, anyone who saw the Chunin exams will have seen it." She put summons in the "will know" area.

"Sasuke?"

Sasuke put down the Flame rasengan in the maybe area, reasoning as he did so that his fire affinity was well known. Raijin went with it.

Naruto completed the analysis by adding his shadow clones, Wind Rasengan and blizzard version, and his tailed state. "Right. Now, got it memorized?"

Both nodded, and he promptly blew it up. "We better work out what their counters might be. And now we have Sakura's experience with an Akatsuki member to work from, perhaps see how we can evaluate them."

She agreed. "My assessment was that he wasn't quite as tough as Tsunade of the Sannin – and definitely less so than the Hokage – but it wouldn't take more than maybe three people of that calibre to kill off a Sannin. And Sasori was a fairly minor member compared to Pain or Konan. I'd venture that they could beat any of the Sannin, especially if Konan's an honest to goodness S-rank criminal kunoichi. Even S-rank loyal kunoichi are rare as hell – I can think of two, Tsunade and Mei Terumei of Mist."

"Criminal's a relative term. Rain-nin actually worship her as an angel. Remember those genin we met in Tea?"

"Right. But as for Pain…"

"Yeah, Jiraiya said that if they're still alive then it's because they beat Hanzo the salamander. For those who might have missed it, the Sannin got their fame and title for surviving against him."

Sasuke looked wistful for a moment. "That'd be nice. To be so strong that merely living through a battle with you is a badge of honour."

"So. To business. Deidara?"

"Weakness is lightning, but he likes to keep people at massive range. I think if Naruto and I tag team him we might get him – Naruto for the cannon fodder and because his tailed state can soak a lot of the explosives, and I can get up in the air and use the Raijin to keep him at bay."

"Good, that's one we have an actual plan for. I'll add that it'd be a good idea to have a reverse summoner ready and waiting for the signal in case he tries to mushroom cloud us again. Sasori's dead… Hidan?"

"Don't let him take your blood? I don't know… Naruto might be able to handle things with his regen, but I doubt it'd be that effective."

"I can't manage to heal too much brain injury, though if I just swarm him with as many two-tail clones as I can I might take him out. They don't bleed."

"What about elements? And have you considered building yourself a better, tougher form to shift to?"

"Dossiers don't mention them, I think he's just an offensive taijutsu master with a weird as hell weapon and a demonic contract. And nice idea, I might look for one. Kakuzu?"

"All I can say is, ouch. Fighting him sounds like fighting the Hokage where only a heart shot counts and he has five lives. Those attacks of his could probably blow through several tails of chakra."

"I propose we work on finding a way to make him eat Rasenshuriken. Or at least a _lot_ of elemental Rasengan."

Sakura held up another scroll. "Waterfall has some information on the nature of the Earth Grudge Fear tech he stole. It's nasty. Basically, the threads mean he's not limited to one body – though each needs a heart – and that he can puppet anything."

Sasuke took it. "Is the Earth in the name indicative of the element?"

"Doubt it. His original nature was Water. I think it's just a massively complex untyped technique."

"Threads… hm. Fire?"

"Unlikely to work, he has something called Earth Spear – we need to take out his Earth heart before anything short of a Rasengan can touch him."

"Right!" Naruto said. "I think he goes in the 'pour on the firepower and hope for the best' area. What about Kisame?"

"Chakra draining, water attacks and so much chakra he could probably sub in for a tailed beast. Even a mass electrocution attack might not work, though I think if he takes a purely physical attack that hits hard enough he might go down."

"How much chakra are we talking?"

"More than you, Naruto. Several tails' worth. Though Mist say his Samehada's a separate living being and might be enticed to change sides somehow."

"Yeah, good luck with _that._ A guy called Kisame, with gills, pointed teeth and sharkskin, with a sword called Samehada, and sharks as summons? Talk about meant for each other…"

"Good point. Konan?"

"Negotiation, Fire, Water and surrender in that order. I once worked out how many explosive tags an S-rank ninja could make, if they put ten percent of their chakra into it each day. And, well, it could take Fire Country off the map."

Sakura winced. "Point taken. Pain?"

"We know too little about the powers of the Rinnegan, though apparently the gravity power does have a cooldown time. Best guess is massively layered attacks at range."

"That's your solution to everything, Naruto."

"It works, and I want an eighteenth birthday, damnit. Zetsu?"

"Compared to Zetsu, the powers possessed by Pain are an open book. Not a clue."

Suddenly Naruto clutched his arm. "That was weird… Kuda vanished. I'd guess it's a signal." He formed the summoning seals and slammed down his thumb. "Kaen, Kori, usual deal, Mandias wants to see me. Kuda, along you come."

The little pipe-fox phased back into his skin and the pair vanished.

"Very prompt, Naruto. A letter arrived for you from the Crows, I think it might be from Itachi as a message. There's three scrolls in there, addressed to each of you."

"Thanks. Guess I'm ready to go back now."

* * *

_Naruto:_

_This is the Crow. I'm warning you that the last member of Akatsuki has joined their ranks, replacing Sasori. More is in Sasuke's letter, as this concerns him, but take care. Now that three tailed beasts are caught and the Three-tails has finally reformed, Akatsuki are stepping up their efforts. You are the last target on the list._

_Additionally, the false person technique you faced was produced by Pain, but he received no feedback on techniques used against it. Your teammate's secret is safe._

* * *

_Sakura:_

_Your aspects are as of yet unknown from the rest of Akatsuki, but your summons are known – Zetsu was using a phasing technique to observe your fight with Sasori. Since Kisame calls sharks it would seem prudent to warn them of the danger they might pose._

* * *

_Sasuke:_

_A silly-seeming, orange masked man called Tobi has just joined Akatsuki as a 'temp'. This is the single most dangerous person in the entire world – do NOT engage him, do not chase him down, and don't even let on you know who he is until you have fulfilled all the following criteria:_

_Faced me in battle and killed me._

_Taken my eyes._

_Worked out a counter to a Mangekyo-based intangibility technique and a Mangekyo-based space time teleportation/capture technique._

_This is because Tobi is in fact Uchiha Madara._

_He wears a different mask, but it is indeed him. I cannot stress enough how dangerous this man is. Here is someone who repeatedly annoys an S-rank missing ninja with a known hair trigger and whose entire moveset is lethal explosives, because Deidara essentially cannot hope to hurt him._

_Finally, check Nanako shrine regularly. The lore there may help you, but remember that most of it is mere opinion._

* * *

Sasuke crumpled the letter in his fist. "I'm going to kill him."

Naruto and Sakura exchanged glances. "Okay. How's about working out a way not to die before you get the chance?"

"…fine. But this is a _concession_."

"So!" Sakura said perkily. "How do we beat someone who can go intangible? Surprise attack?"

* * *

"So this is the shrine Itachi mentioned?"

"Yes." Sasuke lit some lamps with an E-rank Fire technique. "It contains the hidden lore of the Uchiha clan, with the tablet at the core such that only an Uchiha's Sharingan can read it."

"Really? Might want to get Kakashi in on this, then, see what his Mangekyo gets." Sakura said, then frowned. "That doesn't look right… Naruto? Anything?"

The boy also stared at the tablet. "Yeah, something's off… wait a sec. This is hidden from normal eyes. And we've all got extra options." He entered Jinchuuriki initial stage, just enough for his eyes to go red, and ran a finger over the tablet. "Yep. Says 'The ten-tails is formed of the nine Bijuu, and its' recombination means the near-certain destruction of the order of the world.'"

Sasuke blinked. "That's not what that bit says to me. For me, it just says some guff about the blood red path and 'abandon all bonds of kinship'. The rest's illegible. I think it's instructions for attaining the Mangekyo."

"Neat." Sakura said, preparing herself to activate True Sight. "Context-sensitive seals or something?" Her vision went briefly into the heightened perception, then she winced. "Ow. I think I got all the possible messages at once. Not sure why, but there was one that was clearer than the rest and I could actually read it. It mentioned the 'line of Bishamon'."

Naruto swapped Youkai for Sage chakra. "Message has changed for me now. About how to become in tune with the world one has to not kill their heart. And something about 'child of prophecy'."

Sasuke turned to his two teammates. "Naruto, if you turn out to be the messiah… I will be very annoyed."

"So will I!" Naruto replied. "Part of the job description is generally martyrdom."

* * *

Kakashi squinted. "Instructions on how to gain the Mangekyo… congratulations on gaining the Mangekyo, you have a limited free trial before you have to take the eyes of your brother… Thank you for upgrading to the full version… ooh, it mentions Kamui on here. That would have saved a lot of time."

Sasuke went alert. "It explains the power of your Mangekyo?"

"Yes, by name. And there's a second one legible, too." Kakashi looked closer. "Who or what the hell is a 'Shiranui'?"

White fire washed over Kakashi for a second, before leaving him looking absolutely the picture of health. His scar across his – replaced – eye was gone, his skin was free of the innumerable minor wounds any shinobi picked up, and his sharingan flickered for a second before deactivating, leaving a black eye in its' place.

Then he fell over with a thud.

"Neat." Sasuke said. "Complete healing, though since your transplanted eye is still black I assume that means it perfected the transplant?"

"…not again…"

"Oh, calm down. At least now you can turn your Sharingan off."

* * *

"Ino!"

Team Asuma turned at Sakura's voice. "Oh, hi, Sakura. What is it?"

"Early birthday present!" Sakura handed over a scroll. "The last guy I fought used loads of puppets, and this one's a puppet of the Third Kazekage, complete with his ability to control iron sand. Since you can possess puppets, well…"

Ino's eyes lit up. "Thanks, Sakura, this is brilliant!"

Shikamaru frowned in contemplation. "Iron sand? As in, mutable opaque solid? I like the sound of that. If I catch someone in my Shadow Posession, then Ino could just crush them in an iron coffin. Not to mention how the sand itself could create a shadow."

Sakura mirrored his frown. "Why doesn't the Nara clan just use kusari-gama?"

Shika froze, staring off into space. "Why did none of us _ever_ think of that?"

* * *

"Let the Thunder God be the herald of the Storm's flight."

"Sorry, Sakura?"

Sakura looked up. "I just finished tracing the root seal of the entire array. Everything else is descriptions of how – amazing stuff, the reason for that little yellow flash is that the seals convert all the crazy radiation involved with light barrier breaking, space-time teleportation into that part of the visible spectrum – but the root of the entire array is an intent statement. Thunder God is the name the seal array has for itself – well, it also translates as Lightning Rod as Celestial's nuanced like that, but Thunder God is the closest translation for the Celestial term – but I don't know why Storm is also in Celestial as a name."

"I'll ask if Mandias knows anything. He's the best versed in Celestial."

* * *

"Your next mission is in Rice fields country, to investigate the bases of Orochimaru."

"Why bother going after Orochimaru? He's still a good few months from his next body transfer and that assumes he's going to switch again rather than keeping the prepared body with the Dead Bone Pulse. If he has anything, it's time – I doubt he's making many plans now."

"Okay, good point. But we still have to treat an S-rank missing nin as a legitimate threat, even if we DO have about nine others to deal with."

Naruto sighed. "Whatever. Hey, maybe we can at least level one of his bases."

* * *

Team Seven stood atop a massif in the paradoxically arid Rice country, gazing across the terrain.

"Well? Any ideas how we find a hidden village here?"

Naruto frowned. "Does this country have a coastline?"

"Yeah, to the north. Why?"

Naruto shrugged. "Just thinking that if I were making a hidden village of sound, I'd play up the music and sonic attack angle, then make it under an ocean inlet – that is, a sound."

Kakashi winced at the pun. "That's distressingly possible. But we'd better have a look around here nevertheless."

Sasuke's Sharingan flashed into life, and Sakura activated her True Sight. The two scanned the area for several seconds, before Sasuke pointed. "There. The ground doesn't fit properly with the rest of the area. I'd say it's a hidden base."

"We'll check." Kakashi declared, before flashing his own Sharingan active. "Yes, I see it now."

* * *

"This place is amazing!" Sakura said, looking through the small but varied library within the base. It had been left effectively abandoned but for some nasty sealing arrays, but Sakura had managed to determine their meaning and feed their chakra-draining properties back on themselves.

Good thing, too, as they seemed designed to absorb until they had more than the target and then blow up. As it was, they'd just stay in a logic loop forever.

Sasuke shrugged, looking over a scroll. "Hm. This seems to be the origin of the Curse Seals – it's a record of all the prototypes used, so as to try to determine what works."

Sakura glanced at it. "Wow, it's that simple? All his failed seals were grammatically incorrect."

"Not all of us can speak Celestial, you know."

Sakura stuck her tongue out. "I'll have you know I _read_ it, and not very well. Does mean I have the last pieces of the puzzle, though, the first stanza always escaped me when I was looking at Anko's, and I didn't know it was enzymic. I should be able to remove it within a day or two. Definitely keep that scroll for now." She went on to the next, and gasped. "This one's how he does the freaky sword trick! This _must_ be from the time of the Sage – I haven't seen anything younger that elegant and audacious except Naruto's dad's kunai."

Sasuke looked interested. "What's it like, then?"

"It seems to be at least partly conceptual, and revolves around bridging the gap between illusions and reality. He keeps the Kusanagi – which, as I recall, is also an artefact from the Sage's time – in his _mindscape_."

"…Sometimes I forget what Kage level ninja means. And then I hear something like this. It's one thing to know that the Hokage knows every technique not of a clan or bloodline, and another to realize that that means he has the _perfect_ response to any situation."

"Tell me about it. I once asked Lady Tsunade what the seal on her forehead was, and it's a chakra storage seal that can be triggered to refill her reserves to overflowing twice over – _and _regenerate her until it's discharged all that." Sakura then sealed up the scroll in one of her own seals. "Anything else worth keeping?"

"This treatise on artificial bloodlines, and that's about it. Got the demo tag?"

Sakura pulled a paper square about a foot across from her bag, unfolding it to full size. "Yep. This thing's going to level the base if anything is. Get Naruto in here to charge it and set the countdown, would you?"

* * *

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted, as they ran for it.

"What? You said charge it with a lot of chakra, did you forget I work on a different scale to normal ninja?" Naruto said, panting the words out in the middle of a fairly impressive sprint.

"You put a tail of chakra into a demolitions explosive tag! And since you only set the timer for five minutes, we're going to be hard pressed to get far enough away in time!"

"Right, good point. Hang on," Naruto formed seals on the run and summoned Ichimaru. "Head south and summon me in a few minutes. Everyone else, hold on to me."

Sakura nodded in comprehension. "Nice. How fast IS Ichimaru?"

"Nobody knows. Some say that finding out would ruin the magic."

* * *

Orochimaru frowned. "Kabuto, was that an earthquake?"

"I didn't feel anything, Lord. Though I think I managed to work out how to create a version of the Curse Seal to allow the rocket effect Juugo displays sometimes."

"Very well, sign a dozen unimportant test subjects out of the base stores and give it a go." Orochimaru got up from his desk. "I'm off to see if I can create any more new bloodlines – I have a feeling there's something that could be done with the lungs…"

* * *

"Naruto, stay behind for a minute."

The rest of team seven left at the Third's oblique dismissal. Naruto frowned. "What is it, old man?"

"Naruto." The Third Hokage was unusually serious even for him. "You most likely didn't hear this, but when Orochimaru was pretending to be the Kazekage before he attacked me he asked me when I was planning on retiring." Naruto frowned, not seeing where this was going. "I replied that I was going to wait at least five years. Three of those years are up, and I haven't changed my mind – I will give up my post, hopefully for good, two years from now."

He sighed. "None of the high ranked ninja of the village were the right choice. A Kage has to be immensely powerful, wise, kind – and be someone who never lets themselves be discouraged. Tsunade lost herself in drink and gambling, Jiraiya – well, you know my students' habits, and Kakashi wasn't reliable enough. To be frank, all of the people who are currently candidates weren't before they met you."

"But to get to the point. Naruto, I decided this a long time ago and nothing I've seen since has swayed me. Make it through the next two years, and the hat's yours."

Sarutobi smiled at the stupefied look on Naruto's face. "Oh, and your team are all getting promoted to Special Jonin. You all deserve it – and I'm going to assign you to Akatsuki related business from now on, two of you have special interest and Sakura can keep you all healthy."

* * *

"Anko?"

The snake-themed Kunoichi turned. "What?"

"Happy birthday." Sakura handed her a piece of paper.

"But it's not my birthday, little Chunin."

Sakura grinned. "Actually, Special Jonin. The promotion came through an hour ago. And consider it an early present!" She focused chakra for a second, and the seal array in the paper came alive.

_Let the subject be consumed by doubt, wracked with pain, forced to dream of darkness, made to submit to the Snake Summoner Orochimaru. Her inner darkness eclipse the light. Power flood her body, on her surrender to her innermost fears and desires. On the call of submission, let the gates of power fall and flood this form with strength. Four for the first, three for the second, and the second be serpentine and consumed with the lust for power, for battle, for the Snake Summoner Orochimaru._

The entire Curse Seal unfolded on Anko's neck in seconds, then the characters of Sakura's recently built array lashed out across her body to match them.

_Let the subject's will stand as a testament to the disproof of the other seal. Every year she has resisted temptation, remove a clause. Every time she has ignored the whispers, let their effects be reverted. Her every connection with the Snake Summoner Orochimaru rendered null and void, the tainted enzymes that fill her neutralized, the gates of her body open at her command alone._

The two seals clashed for a moment, then imploded with a flicker of motion and left nothing behind.

"I… what did you just do?" Anko asked shakily, feeling her equilibrium disrupted. As if something she'd been leaning against, pushing back, for years had just… gone.

Sakura held up a mirror. "Last raid we found how the Curse Seal works and I managed to design a counter to yours. It relied heavily on the Free Will clause, so don't know if it would have worked had you ever actually used the thing. Only disadvantage is that I think it _may_ have severed your summon contract."

* * *

Anko grit her teeth. This would determine a lot of the rest of her life.

If she got the snakes again… it would mean she could still use many of those techniques that she had developed over the years, but would also be a new tie to Orochimaru.

If she got something else… she didn't know _how_ she'd take it.

She focused her chakra and went through the handseals. "Summoning!"

Anko Mitarashi vanished from Training Ground 44.

* * *

She picked herself up from the ground, which she absently noted was hard-packed and dusty, and looked at the enormous range of hills before her. "Okay, where the hell am I? This isn't the Snake place, I know that much…"

"Indeed it is not." Anko turned.

The eight foot mustelid behind her regarded her calmly. "Good afternoon. I am Belisarius of the mongoose. My assistant here is Valentinian." The smaller mongoose he pointed to bore an expression of focused lethality.

Belisarius stroked a gem tied around his neck for a moment. "What is a human doing in our Trapps?"

Anko blinked, then clenched her fists and leapt into the air, punching it. "Hell YES!"

* * *

Sakura completed her current project, and blinked. "Hey, Sasuke, can you bring the Raijin over here?"

"Sure. What for?"

She removed the Hiraishin kunai from the centre of a complex seal array, which folded down to a simple circle about two feet across. "I built an array with everything I know about Celestial to, basically, decompress seals in an artefact to tell if I missed anything. I think Storm in the tri-prong kunai is a True Name… but anyway, it made a decompacted array that was fractally complex. I wanted to compare it with the Raijin."

Sasuke shrugged, and put the unassuming hilt in the centre of the circle. The array quivered, then exploded outwards to form a thick circle composed of horrendously complex seals.

The pinkette examined it for a second. "Yeah, the two are about equal in complexity. That's pretty amazing as the Raijin's a near-indestructible weapon and the only other things I've ever seen this detailed are the climate monoliths in Spring, the Bijuu Sealing Array Akatsuki have and that fan Yugito Nii was using in the border incident with Oto ninja last year."

Sasuke shuddered, remembering the sheer carnage she'd caused. The fan was a weapon once used by the Sage of Six Paths, and the young Jonin had used it to bathe a strike team of ninja from Sound with all five of the basic elements at once to overwhelm the Cursed Seal ninja among the group.

Team Seven of the time had helped track the group, but Yugito could clearly have done the mission on her own - their presence was a mere diplomatic nod to Konoha.

"Wait… some of those date from the Sage himself. Are you saying my main weapon is similarly old?"

"It's possible, though the special Kunai aren't that old. It seems the Fourth really was a genius of the highest calibre." She pursed her lips. "The more I study, the more certain I am that the Sage didn't actually use chakra the same way we do."

Sasuke frowned.

"Think about it. The three great Dojutsu all originate from him in some way, and all of them use chakra to do things we'd normally label flatly impossible. The Byakugan grants total perception of space time in an area, and the Sharingan lets you exactly copy expressed chakra flows and movements after seeing them once – from the outside. For starters."

"All that's instinctual-"

"Exactly!" Sakura began gesticulating. "And most high impact Jutsu were invented in the last couple hundred years, things like the Chidori or the Rasengan or the, the… oh, there's so many examples! But the Sage is described as beating the Ten-tails. You've seen Naruto in his second stage transformation four tails, last spar, and do you really think that anyone – no matter how strong – could beat something sixty-four times as powerful as that with only a few years' worth of experimental techniques from first principles? No, he has to have…" her voice tailed off, her eyes widening.

"What?"

"Sasuke… what if your chakra control was perfect? I mean, completely and totally perfect. No handseals, no vocalization, no practice needed. You didn't even have to consciously control it, it just did what you wanted. Your will made manifest in the real world."

The Uchiha finally got it, and just went silent for a second.

"…It's an awesome prospect."

"Yeah."

* * *

Jiraiya arrived unannounced (as usual) in the Team Seven training area. "Naruto, do you still have that problem with Sage Mode?"

Naruto nodded. "I just find it impossible to hang onto when I move."

"Strange. Tell me, how did you train?"

The newly minted Special Jonin shrugged. "The old fox instructed me, and used a staff they stole from the toads to stop my transformations going wrong. You know that."

"No, I mean what was your catalyst. Like the toads have toad oil that helps you draw in nature chakra."

"Draw it in? Nothing like that. In fact…" Naruto made a shadow clone without seals, which promptly bashed its' head against a rock. "Stupid… I think I just worked out what I was doing wrong. I was merging my chakra with the nature chakra, not the other way around."

Jiraiya stared into space for a few moments. "A single critical flaw in your execution, making it utterly different in style. Yep, that's you all right." His eyes slowly went gold and his face warped with the effect of his own Sage Mode. "Want me to get Fukasaku here for a bit of remedial work?"

"Yeah, go ahead. He and Mandias can double team me on remedial sageness." Naruto's eyes went slit yellow for a second, then he materialized Mandias. "Got a problem, old guy. My Sage Mode was bass-ackwards."

Mandias shook his head. "I don't have the staff with me, you'll need to give me a few minutes to retrieve it."

"Nah, your equivalent in the toads is about to turn up. He replaced the one you stole."

Sakura wandered over as she saw Naruto and Jiraiya doing something interesting. "Oh, lord Jiraiya, I was meaning to ask. Did Minato have a…" she tailed off as a thought occurred "Can I have a look at the toad scroll?"

"Eh? Sure." Jiraiya added the toad's scroll-keeper to his summon technique, and while the two animal sages began to beat Naruto up and down the training field, unrolled it. "Why, want to compare it with your own?"

"No…" Sakura breathed, staring at the scroll.

The penultimate signatory was still there, as she had hoped – the fragment in Naruto's seal hadn't departed this plane of existence, so he hadn't entirely died. And far from Minato Namikaze, the scroll was signed _Arashi_. Storm.

A true name. Naruto's father had worked out his true name and created a seal structure keyed to it.

"How old was he when he signed the scroll?" She said, tracing the name with her fingers. It spoke of muted rumbling, of strength hidden behind an unassuming façade – and at the same time, it spoke of the unbridled fury of a thunderstorm.

As it should for a man who wiped out an army single-handed.

"Well, he was about, ooh, twenty? No, less, he was a teenager. Not very old at all."

"Oh, Naruto…" she whispered. "Your parents never cease to amaze me. Lord Jiraiya, that's a true name. And I think I know how the Hiraishin works."

* * *

"Ow! Argh! Stop it, you guys!"

"Now, now, Naruto," Mandias chuckled, "You're not used to the way Sage Mode can be used in hand to hand combat, so you need to learn."

"You knocked me THROUGH a rock! That's just cruel and unusual."

"No, my boy." Fukasaku weighed in. "That's this bit."

Naruto's hands came up in a block, and the fifty ton lump of granite that had been thrown at him cracked in half.

"Good! You're getting more used to the effects you get from your activated body." Mandias said brightly. Then he nipped his paw and scattered the resultant blood, forming three copies of himself. "Blood clones. They'll only go down to a fatal hit. Your objective is to beat them."

As the two sages watched Naruto begin unleashing A-ranked wind techniques in the kind of constant stream impossible for anyone with less than Kage level chakra reserves, Fukasaku leant over to Mandias. "Blood clone?"

"Took me twenty years to make that one work. Their disadvantage is that each one has its' max chakra reserves deducted from yours plus about an S-rank drain to make each one. That three there is about half my limit with the technique, and more than four and they get much less useful."

Mandias then winced. "Ooh, one down already. He pasted it with a Rasengan the size of a house. Have to watch out for – nope, that was number two."

Fukasaku glanced at the apocalypse of tearing wind that had destroyed one of the blood clones. "What was that one?"

"About twenty percent of his chakra reserves dumped into the surroundings as pure wind chakra from a shadow clone. He's certainly good at high impact attacks."

Then a bell-like screech was heard. Mandias and his clone both watched the forming Rasenshuriken warily. "Okay, that's a close in attack, so-"

Then he threw it.

Mandias' clone managed to jump aside in time, but found out the hard way that the Sage chakra holding the thing together was still under Naruto's control. It detonated and made a hundred foot crater in the ground, also disintegrating the blood clone.

Jiraiya, Sakura, Kakashi, Sasuke, Fukasaku and Mandias all winced in unison. _He can THROW that thing now?_

"Holy crap, Naruto!" Sakura shouted at him. "What rank are we going to give THAT?"

Naruto shrugged, panting hard as his Sage Mode cancelled itself. "Is there an SS rank?"

"Well, we'll have to bloody well invent one, won't we?" Jiraiya said, recovering. "Rasengan was A rank, the elemental forms and Great Ball form both shade S if they weren't already, the Rasenshuriken's high S as it basically kills every cell of the target – I feel sorry for that missing nin you beaned with it last year, by the way – and since it can now be thrown and is apparently even MORE powerful, if that thing's used you can write off anyone in a fifty yard radius of the line of travel thanks to that command detonation trick."

* * *

In his office, the Hokage fell off his chair. _Command detonation? For THAT monster?_

The old man then began thinking of what countermeasures he might be able to use against Naruto. A sort of mental "war games". And came up pretty short.

_Elemental techniques? Fire would be the simple answer, but with an attack that fast and dense it would just mean that instead of an enormous wind attack heading towards me at vast speed, it would be ON FIRE as well. Wind manipulation would be a possibility, but Naruto's got the chakra to overwhelm most wind users. Lightning? Just no. Water might work, but between Sage and Jinchuuriki modes he's pretty well defended and an Earth element to boot. And as for Earth itself… Hm, that one's tricky._

_Summons? Enma's staff form is made of a supposedly unbreakable material, but I don't want to destruct-test that. And most of the rest of them are finesse workers, not power. Though a couple of them might have a trick or two…_

_Non-elemental attacks are a major question mark, I don't know how Sage mode works well enough, but it does grant Sensor capabilities._

* * *

Naruto clapped his hands together. "Right, that was nice, what now?"

Fukasaku nodded to himself. "I know. You need to learn Frog-style taijutsu to use in Sage mode. Your Fox style is fine for your jinchuuriki forms, but-"

The boy frowned. "Hmmm… Sage chakra's so powerful because it involves three types of energy melding at once instead of two, right?"

"Yes, since they're orthogonal to one another."

Naruto continued worrying at his thought. "So is Youkai orthogonal to both bits of normal chakra? Because I think that's how the Beast Ball attack works."

"…it is." Both sages were getting that sinking feeling again. The one that said Naruto was about to break the rules.

"So if I were to invent some kind of demonic sage mode?"

Mandias choked.

"What? You said the Sage of Six Paths was a _Sage._ Could he have perhaps tried that?"

"We'll discuss this later. For now, Frog kata." Fukasaku insisted. "In concept they're broadly similar to the Fox style of long range ambush, except that they focus more on the movement over concealment and on the single devastating strike."

The elderly sage took a stance. "Form one: Horned toad."

Then punched Naruto across the training ground.

"Now, see, the mistake there is that you didn't dodge! Get used to it!"

Naruto dug himself out of the side of a hill. "Owww… right, let's keep going."

"Very good. Dodge!"

* * *

The Hokage watched through his crystal ball as Danzo shuffled some reports. "Oh, dear."

Danzo looked across to his old friend. "Problem with Team Seven again?"

"Yes. Naruto's undergoing training to use close combat in the manner of a Sage. Remember when Jiraiya was doing that?"

The elder nodded. "Oh, yes. That was the time he became able to take a punch that would send him across a field?"

"Exactly. Naruto's being thrown through rock formations. I think we'll need another C-ranker for Earth element Chunin to fix the place."

"What, again? It's only been a week since the last one."

"Nevertheless." The Hokage winced again. "Ooh, that had to hurt. But then, I suppose after what Naruto did to the blood clones, he sort of deserves it."

* * *

It was interesting, seeing the whole of Konoha laid out below. It was even more interesting to feel the faint tingle as the barrier/detection jutsu across the entire village registered him leaving at about twenty miles an hour, then two seconds later returning at the same speed.

Which brought up another point. He was heading towards the ground, and since he'd left it at half the speed of sound… hitting wasn't going to be a great deal of fun.

Naruto evaluated his Sage reserves. About twenty percent left – one more minute.

Should be enough.

* * *

WHAM

Everyone winced. "Ouch…"

Mandias trotted over. "Need some help?"

"Someone throw me a rope! I am very far down!"

"So why don't you do the Underground Move?" Sakura asked curiously.

"My left hand is embedded in solid rock."

"Wow. Sage Mode really does make you more durable."

* * *

"So, a series of grave robberies from Fire country monastries? Any reason they're sending _us_ to handle it?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi shrugged. "As far as I know, they hope that sending such a well known and powerful team will illustrate the value Konoha places on the friendship of the monastries. Besides, Sakura and Sasuke between them are _really_ good at forensics."

"Team Kurenai are as good at forensics, and Asuma was one of the Twelve in his past. Why not them?"

"Maybe Asuma asked his father he not be given the assignment – it caused a rift between them in the past, you know."

"Fine, then. Suppose I can do with the respite from being thrown at large lumps of rock or sparring with the old toad." The boy stretched, getting the cricks out of his spine. "Urgh, it's a pity that whole merger thing doesn't work for me though. Being able to be in Sage mode constantly would be an enormous boost. I'll just be fine with grabbing a few seconds every five or six minutes to recharge, hopefully."

* * *

Naruto almost tripped, but caught himself by staggering forward a few paces. "Well, I think I found one of the graves…"

Sasuke snapped his fingers, producing a light in the palm of his hand. "I think you're right. Looks fresh."

A wind-element blade came slashing towards them out of the night, and Naruto snapped up his hand. "Get back, guys!" A blue stream of light from Naruto blocked it, and he began clashing in a swirling melee with the attacker.

Sakura blinked. "How did Naruto just make a Wind chakra blade from his finger?"

"He's producing them from all his fingers and thumbs, now." Sasuke commented. "Impressive."

"Sora, stop!" A voice rang out. Naruto's attacker disengaged, and he followed suit, deactivating his chakra blades and examining his hands unhappily.

"This always hurts like ten kinds of hell. Regeneration can only do so much…"

"Sora, what was that about?" An elderly monk walked into the circle of light Sasuke was producing. "I told you that there was help coming from Konoha, and not a day later I find you attacking a member of Konoha's Four Seasons."

Naruto sidled over to his teammates, clutching his hands together to staunch the bleeding. "Four seasons?"

Sakura nodded. "I heard about it yesterday from Anko – she captured a bingo book on a recent sortie. We're known to be together as a team again, and us three being with Sai, they assigned us the name of 'four seasons'- I'm spring, you're summer, Sasuke's autumn, and Sai is winter."

Naruto nodded along. "I get that you're spring, and I guess with my hair and eyes summer makes sense. Even that Sai's winter because of the whole emotionless façade thing, but autumn?"

Sasuke smirked. "Autumn has thunderstorms. And we all have individual names, too. Don't tell me you missed getting a look at someone else's Bingo Book during your training trip?"

Naruto shrugged. "Not much chance, really. Between all those high power attacks and working on Jinchuuriki states, I didn't have the time."

"Well," The Last Loyal Uchiha In Konoha began, "I'm called the Thunderhawk. Nice name, works well for me. Sakura's just called, well, sakura. Must be that symbolism thing. Sai's the Blackbird, which makes sense, and you're called Fuuma – demon wind."

"I like it. But I could swear nobody saw the Rasenshuriken, which is basically the ultimate fuuma shuriken – I only ever used it on solo missing nin like the Land of the Sea incident."

Sakura shrugged. "Jinchuuriki, strong Wind element, the factors are already all there. Talk about appropriate nickname. And now that you're apparently generating Wind element claws-"

"It's just a single chakra blade, smashed into about fifty bits and shoved under the skin all over my body. Hidden weapons, you know? And it only takes a tiny bit of chakra blade to make a very long wind blade."

The monk and Sora had apparently come to some sort of agreement. Sora walked over, and prostrated himself before Naruto briefly. "My apologies for my rash actions, master Ninja. Will you follow us to the temple?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." Naruto looked around. "Where are Yamato and Kakashi?"

Sasuke gave another smirk. "I tricked him into saying Shiranui two hours ago and Yamato had to carry him back to the hospital. Turns out you can go straight from inactive eye to Mangekyo technique."

Sai frowned. "So it is normal behaviour for people to try to trick other people into hospital?"

Sakura shrugged. "For Sasuke it is. And since he's technically getting Kakashi to practice, it's probably justified. Shiranui could be an enormously useful technique – looked to me like it has the same chakra cost for healing _any_ injury."

* * *

"Sora was isolated in his childhood because of the nature of his power-"

Before Chiruku had even finished talking, Sakura activated her True Sight. "What the hell? Naruto, this guy's got some of Millie's chakra!"

Naruto's eyes went yellow. "Old guy! Got a problem for you!"

Mandias blinked as the smoke cleared from his summoning. "Okay, what now? Didn't I see you just this morning?"

His summoner pointed. "This kid has red youkai in him. How?"

The arctic fox frowned. "Red specifically? If it were another colour, it could just be some of the spare chakra from the Ten-tails… excuse me, boy, mind if I take a small sample of your blood? It would help me work out what is going on."

Sora was getting a bit cross-eyed at how fast things were moving. "Er, okay, I guess." He handed over a bloody chakra blade to Mandias, who licked it and grimaced.

"Four tails? That's ludicrously much chakra to have leaked out of Millie, but there's no real alternative explanation. Okay, since Youkai is so dense, then small amounts of it can linger for a great deal of time. It might be that there was some left over from either the Valley of the End battle or – more likely, given his age – the attack fifteen years ago. In that case, then the Youkai could have been gathered up and sealed into him somehow. Problem is, using it would lead to his hindbrain being supercharged – overwhelming his intelligence, that sort of thing, since there's no moderating consciousness like there is with you and Millie. Though it's lucky we broke that Sharingan illusion, or you using her powers would be even _worse._"

"Sorry," asked the elderly monk, "But am I missing something?"

* * *

Sasuke's Sharingan blazed. "Ambush! I'll take the Earth user."

Sakura nodded. "I call the bitch with the red hair."

Naruto didn't bother to say anything, just charging the white haired male ninja.

Sai blinked as the rest of his team vanished off towards three of the attackers. "It seems I am left with the weak one then."

His opponent laughed. "That arrogance will be your undoing, Konoha ninja!" She pulled a scroll from storage and began annotating it. "The very earth itself is under my command! You will be unable to fight thanks to the number of traps that will surround you, and-"

Sai dropped a pride of ink lions from above her. "Failing to pay attention to the bingo book is a major mistake. That my nickname is Blackbird serves to indicate that I can create birds. That means I fly."

Fuen dove underground, and emerged a distance away with a handful of earth, which she shaped into three staffs. "Shut up!" A quick splash of ink, and she was on a pillar rising into the sky. "I'll still be able to-"

An ink fly exploded on her map, rendering it completely black. Sai felt vaguely like facepalming. "And I thought you were the smart one, because you are clearly not on the team for your chakra levels. Or looks."

She threw her staffs at Sai, and managed to hit his bird with two of them and dispel it. "Not so cocky now, are you brat?"

"Yes." Came a voice from behind her. She started, but Sai pressed her too closely for her to break off. "You have heard of clones, I take it? Because that was a clone you shot down. You really are not very observant."

She blocked his first Tanto strikes with a staff. "Shut the hell up!"

Sai's tanto twisted in an impossible pattern and caught her across the shoulder, the brush in his other hand producing a trail of ink along the staff that became a swarm of bees. "You no longer have the ability to form handseals since your tendons are destroyed in the shoulder. Unfortunately for you, Root ninja specialized in crippling strikes."

"How did you do that with the sword?" She gasped out, clutching her injured shoulder and keeping a close eye on the bees surrounding her.

"I am a Water element. That means I can use my element to handle weapons better." Sai took her map and sliced it in half, causing the terrain to revert. "This was poorly executed as well. You did not include the relatively simple step of making the terrain permanently altered."

* * *

Sasuke rolled his red eyes. "_Earth?_ You actually have no other elemental affinity than Earth? How did _you_ get to be a high ranking Ninja?"

Fudo launched off a pair of high ranked Earth techniques to cause the ground to distort around Sasuke, hoping to give himself a chance to crush the irritating Konoha ninja. Sasuke dodged again, spun and launched off a spray of Chidori shuriken from both hands.

"Ow!" Fudo clutched his arm for a second. "That damn senbon went right throught the rock! Did you enhance all of them with Lightning chakra?"

Sasuke shook his head. "Try again."

"Oh, I will." Fudo slammed his hands into the ground, causing a horde of zombies to rise from the earth. "Tremble in fear before an army of the undead!"

"Still Earth element. Oh, dear. Your group isn't very good at getting intelligence on their enemies, is it?" Sasuke drew the Raijin and spun it. "Overedge!"

With a crackle, the blade of the sword expanded from its' former katana style to become essentially a broadsword. Thanks to the way only the hilt had any weight, Sasuke held it in one hand and formed a Chidori spear in the other. "I'm one of the four or five best ninja in Konoha at the Lightning element. And I have a legendary lightning sword. Oh, and my sensei also uses lightning. And my name in the Bingo Book mentions this. It also mentions that I have flying summons, but since these… things…" Sasuke looked vaguely disgusted, and poked one with the spear. It fell over. "Are so pathetic, I don't really need them."

"They'll still wear you down enough for me to get you myself!" Fudo shouted from cover. "Attack!"

* * *

Sakura and Fuka exchanged a series of medium ranked elemental jutsu, the attacks flashing back and forth between them in bursts.

Fuka frowned. "How are you doing that? Nobody has that many affinities."

"How do you know I've not just trained all my elements up?"

"You keep doing things without the conversion seal." Fuka flipped open her scroll and swapped into a Fire element body. "But there are still disadvantages to whatever you have." A shower of fireballs shot forwards.

Sakura smashed her fist into the ground, producing broken terrain and a wash of water that she then animated to form a swirling watery shield. "Yeah, no, I don't think so. You have a really bad little kinjutsu there. Orochimaru's is better."

"How dare you!" Fuka's scroll flashed again, and she began firing earth spears. "I have lived a hundred years! He cannot claim nearly so long!"

"Your weak point is your _hair._" Sakura launched a bolt of air-boosted flame towards her opponent. "Oh, and his technique lets him layer affinities and so on instead of just having different bodies for each one."

"How did you work out that my weak point is my hair?" Fuka growled, her appearance slipping and becoming more… old. And bestial.

Sakura felt something well up inside her at the question. _"Insight is my way,"_ She whispered, feeling the Celestial syllables resound in the air.

Then she Replaced with the Earth body as Fuka switched to a Water one, rammed a marbled Water Rasengan into the scroll to shred it and sliced off most of Fuka's hair with a Blade of Wind.

"And… there goes her chakra. Seriously, who has their weak point as their _hair?_" Then she frowned. "Nice petal dance attack, though, I might try to recreate that."

* * *

"Sorry, is this supposed to be hard?" Naruto asked, watching as his horde of Sage Mode shadow clones laid down a _very_ nasty beatdown on Kazuma.

Sure, he only had a few minutes of Sage Mode if he didn't detail a clone to recharge power for him, but he preferred the option where he had hundreds of superpowered ninja everywhere.

"Er… boss?" One of the clones asked, "I think he's… sort of dead. We forgot to pull our punches. Not used to them being able to break rock."

"Meh. He tried to ambush us, he gets what he deserves. Ooh, chakra metal claws."

* * *

"Two thousand, eight hundred and seventeen." Sasuke muttered to himself, spearing the last of the zombies in the heart and shutting down the Earth chakra of the animation technique. "Am I supposed to be worn down yet? I can use the first Gate, you know."

Fudo burst from cover, and-

"Zap." Sasuke spun the Raijin and lengthened it, cutting through the earth element armour his opponent was wearing. "Seriously, are you this stupid? Earth elemental armour means nothing to someone with a _legendary lightning element sword._" He paused. "No? Good, I did hit something vital."

Sasuke deactivated his Raijin. "Let's see… at least I left the body reasonably intact, a rogue member of the Twelve should be good for a fairly impressive bounty."

* * *

Kakashi and Yamato strolled into the temple. "Now, where are our little minions… huh?"

Sora looked up at them, absently tracing the lines of a Sakura-crafted Youkai containment seal on his arm. "They left yesterday after solving the entire mystery and defeating a third of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. Didn't you pass them on the way back?"

Kakashi shook his head. "They'll have flown. They do that."

* * *

Sarutobi addressed the members of Team Seven. "Good work. Now, I was wanting to assign you a rapid reaction force job. Naruto, since you have the summon that unites the rest of the team aside from Sai, you're essential for this. I plan to give each of the Twenty Teams being sent out to comb Fire Country for the Akatsuki one of the Fox single-use scrolls so they can call you in as backup. That is, if you and they are willing."

Naruto nodded. "They should be, and I am."

"Right. My plan is, essentially, for the Akatsuki members to be hit with overwhelming force straight away. I understand you have independent intelligence on their abilities, so use it well. Naruto – you have full authority for both Rasenshuriken and as many tails as you want to use, hang the consequences of collateral damage."

"You got it, old man."

"Sakura, Sasuke… keep him alive."

Naruto got a silly expression. "I don't need them for that! You know-"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "We'll make sure the clown here doesn't overstep himself."

* * *

"Kotetsu!" Izumo yelled, as their small team began being dismantled by the Zombie Brothers. "The scroll!"

The Chunin nodded, firing off a large Syrup Capture Field as he fell back under cover of Asuma's Burning Ash attacks and Shikamaru's new kusari-gama. The Nara's weapon turned out to work well with the Shadow Sewing technique and clashed repeatedly with the larger, more unwieldy version Hidan carried.

"Clear!" He called, and slashed blood along the scroll to trigger it before throwing it into the near distance.

Kakuzu shot fire towards Asuma, who had to dodge as the attack couldn't be blocked by his Wind blades, and turned to salvo whatever summon they had on the way with a False Darkness.

* * *

Team Seven jumped up as Ichimaru vanished from their ready room. Naurto barely had time to say "Now!" before he disappeared, then a second later Sasuke and Sakura were pulled across the country as well.

* * *

Ichimaru wound lazily out of the way of the lightning attack, using the relatively slow tracking it had against it, and summoned Naruto as soon as he made it behind a building. Naruto formed three clones which he set to gathering Sage chakra, called out Aya and Niyi, and a final clone peeked over the bounty station and dispelled.

"Okay, guys," he said as his teammates appeared, "It's Hidan and Kakuzu. I think the best bet is to try to hit one or both of them with the Rasenshuriken, and for that we need to hit him before they really know we're here." One of the clones vanished, and Naruto dropped into Sage Mode. "I'll build the attack. Sakura, cloak the sound for me. Ichimaru, get the team to fall back."

Sasuke drew the Raijin. "I might be able to block those attacks Kakuzu has, but don't bet on it. Best bet is to annihilate him and then we can blast Hidan from long range until something sticks."

The Rasenshuriken began to scream as Naruto's shadow clones built it. "Suits me. Let me know when Asuma and Shika are clear!"

* * *

Shikamaru manoeuvred his new weapon past the triple-bladed scythe his opponent wielded. The other ninja was too strong to allow the weapons to clash directly any more – he had easily enough raw muscle to pull Shikamaru off his feet and into close melee range, and even the Shadow techniques of the Nara couldn't gain hold of someone that strong unless the initial grab was a surprise.

On the other hand… his expression quirked slightly as the curved blade caught his opponent on the shoulder and he started cursing. Then the blade shot down into the missing-nin's shadow and immobilized him.

Getting an entire Kusari-gama made out of chakra metal had been flatly impossible, but a few experiments had shown that electroplating it _was_, so he could channel his family's unusual element through the entire weapon as if it was a part of him.

A blur of wind shot past, whispering something about keeping his foe still.

* * *

Asuma grimaced as Kakuzu launched more and more powerful elemental attacks. That had been an Earth one, and that a powerful Fire attack that he'd had to meet with his own Burning Ash – more of a fire elemental kludge, that, using an enriched fuel to boost his poor Fire element, but it had worked and the exploding fuel/air bomb had blasted apart the attack.

Then a blur of wind muttered to him that he should disengage, and he jumped back beind the cover of another ash cloud, catching the Lightning attack that speared through it in his Wind blades to nullify it.

* * *

"Now!"

Naruto jumped fifty metres into the air and threw his first Rasenshuriken in anger. Once out of Sakura's sound-suppression illusion, everyone on the battlefield heard it, the screech of a million knives on glass cutting through the ambient noise of battle.

Kakuzu barely had time to turn before it hit him and detonated.

* * *

"Yes!" Naruto exulted as he landed. "Scratch one Akatsuki member!"

Sakura and Sasuke jumped onto the building. "Hang on," The kunoichi muttered, trying to see through the haze of Wind chakra, "That doesn't look right. He's still there."

Sasuke nodded. "I see it too. There's an area in the blast epicentre where the Wind chakra's not penetrating."

As the Rasenshuriken collapsed, Naruto squinted through the dust. "Damn it! And I thought we had him!"

"It's some kind of S-rank Earth defence." Sasuke muttered, his eyes analyzing the traces of chakra coming off Kakuzu's skin. "And that means I need to take it down before you can hurt him."

* * *

Kakuzu launched forward two S-ranked attacks at Team Seven.

* * *

"Everyone _down!_" Naruto yelled, his two clones jumping onto the roof in front of them and channelling _vast_ amounts of youkai – about seven tails each. Both clones still vaporized as the incredibly powerful attacks scythed through them, but they got their original the time to grab both his teammates and dive underground.

"Holy hell." Sakura said as they emerged a hundred metres away and Naruto set up a barrier jutsu. "How damn much chakra does he have? That was _seven_ tails of Youkai! Twice!"

A Lightning attack smashed into the barrier, flaring off in a violent aurora of dispersed power. "Hah!" Naruto crowed. "Thought so! Eight is just a little too much for you!"

"Naruto. Are you fuelling that barrier justu with about half the chakra of the Kyuubi?"

"Yep. I invented it for when there might be allies caught up in a battle of this level. It's called the Bunker Shield. Sort of an adaptation of that thing the Sound Four and my Dad did in the old man's battle against Snakey."

"Got it." Sakura examined Kakuzu through the shield for a second. "Okay, that's not natural in any sense of the word. He has five hearts alright, and each has a different chakra nature. No wonder he can run such a powerful Earth technique." A high-pressure water attack steamed off the shield. "Looks like he has tracking problems at short range, though. And since Hidan just got decapitated by Asuma, he's lost his close-in defence. Sasuke, think you can Flicker that far?"

Sasuke snorted. "Please. Though I wouldn't be averse to some cannon fodder. Naruto?"

Naruto nodded. "I can't make many clones in Sage Mode, but you want more a horde of credible threats, right? I can do a good few dozen two-tail clones, they'll evaporate like snow against that kind of firepower but he can't let them in too close."

"Good." Sasuke closed his eyes briefly. "I'll need to do a high power Flicker across that kind of range, though, so get the clones to contain their auras poorly. I need interference so he can't spot the flare."

Sakura winced. "That's going to give me a headache, I just know it. Anything you want me to do?"

"Keep an eye on Hidan, he's going to take more killing than that – I feel certain of it."

* * *

Two squads of a dozen two-tail clones each leapt from behind the building. Kakuzu retargeted his attacks and began cutting them down like grass, noting as he did so that this Jinchuuriki had a lot less control over his aura than the other one, Yugito Nii. Perhaps it was because of the higher amount of chakra he had…

Kakuzu formed a pair of Water clones and swept much of the nearby area with a wind/fire combination attack. The sheer heat of the blast was able to destroy the clones even inside their chakra shroud, and his Water clones began firing attacks at the other ninja nearby. Despite their nature as much weaker than the original, that his attacks still came close to killing his opponents was a striking proof of his S-rank.

Then something appeared sprouting from his chest.

"You know," Sasuke's voice came, "If landing heart-shots is this easy then there's something wrong with you."

Kakuzu Replaced with one of his Water clones and volleyed out a Pressure Damage technique at Sasuke, before enclosing himself in a Water Encampment boosted by Wind and turning the entire area into a firestorm outside the barrier. "I'm not dead yet... oh, I see. You're one of the Uchiha? That's good, it's nice to know that bounties come right up to meet me." His form distorted and began to split.

* * *

Sakura winced. "Ew, that cannot be right. He's using the Earth Grudge Fear to split off his extra hearts into some kind of monsters. Brace for S-ranked attacks, everyone!"

Naruto let his clones disperse apart from three, one of which began channelling Sage chakra again and the other two of which were running the Bunker Shield. "I can get two Rasenshuriken off per Sage mode charge, Sakura, but when I go Sage I have to drop the shield. I'll have to carry you out of the way with a clone."

Sakura shook her head. "I'll just keep my distance and stay Fire/Wind. His Wind attacks lose effectiveness at range and his Water ones are too hard to aim – that's his original heart, by the way – but with Wind up I can block his Lightning. Watch out for the Wind mask, though, the insect like one. I think it could blast your Rasenshuriken apart, and he knows about it now."

"Sounds like a plan." Naruto glanced at his clones. "Go time."

All three dispelled, and Naruto leapt half a kilometre out of the way of a massive Intelligent Hard Work fire-blast that came in immediately afterwards.

Sakura vanished into a concealment Genjutsu. "Right, let's see… pity none of them are close enough to something convenient to Replace with. I wonder if I can somehow mess with his linking technique… no." A Fire attack bathed the area and she ruthlessly suppressed her desire to run or react. "Okay, he thinks I'm not here." The words came again. _"Mystery is my path."_ She blinked, and shook the feeling off. "Fire resistance is so useful…"

She ran in on the Fire mask and switched her Wind to Water, beginning handseals. The technique she was about to try was on the edge of being the combination of two elements, which she wasn't _quite_ sure was restricted to bloodlines. "I _so_ hope this works. Certainly wouldn't try it without aspects, that's for sure. Boiling Stream!"

A thin stream of water shot from her mouth, bathed with flame as it travelled to heat it. She watched it as it travelled past the bounds of the concealment technique, and Kakuzu's Fire mask abruptly spun to seek her out.

So she triggered the Fire chakra as yet unused in the stream, and the entire side of the water stream exploded in steam. The blast sent the trajectory of the water wildly off the original target, straight into the Fire mask creature's dodge.

She had hoped that the water would prove destructive on its' own, but if not she was going to go Water/Wind and boost the attack to give it a razor edge. Luckily, that wasn't needed, as a Lightning Lance came sailing in from Sasuke's own private battle with the Lightning element mask and charged the attack with electricity, which did it for her.

Sometimes having a battlefield precognitive on the team was _so_ handy…

"Fire mask, down!" She yelled, before Flickering in a complex evasion pattern and sending a shadow clone on a different one to let her restart her cloak.

* * *

Naruto frowned in frustration as a Rasenshuriken exploded on a Pressure Damage attack. "Damnit! How many will it take!"

On hearing Sakura's shout, he formed and dispelled a Shadow clone with but a thought to check on that side of the battlefield. Sasuke was still fighting the Lightning mask, Sakura had just killed the Fire one and he was facing the Wind one, so where was Kakuzu? There, his chakra was well shielded but still detectable. He was… restoring Hidan. Brilliant.

"Hidan's back up!" He yelled, before checking his chakra sense again. "This is going to be a real boar if it lasts another thirty seconds!"

* * *

Sasuke nodded to himself. Good to know.

As another attack came in, he braced himself with chakra on his feet and swung the Raijin, repelling both his sword and the blast of lightning violently away from one another before they even touched. _Does this thing ever run out of chakra?_

The mask seemed to consider him for a moment, before flying overhead – absorbing Sasuke's lightning attacks more or less effortlessly, not that he expected them to do anything else – and trying to get Sasuke from a direction it was harder to block.

The attempt was futile. Sasuke knew the counter to such an attack, and expanded the Raijin once more to the size of a broadsword.

* * *

Asuma shook his head at seeing Hidan up on his feet again. "Sloppy of me. I should have done something more permanent."

Shikamaro shook his head. "You couldn't have done anything permanent enough, by the looks of it. Though I think cutting him to bits and killing his teammate might work." The Nara took a roll of tags and wrapped them around the head of his Kusari-gama. "I'll go after Kakuzu this time, you stay on Hidan."

* * *

A stream of hundreds of black bullets tore the Lightning mask apart.

Sasuke lowered the Raijin for a second. "Finally."

The monstrous puppet-thing that had contributed them to the battlefield clicked over, and spoke in a high voice. "Oh, hello, Sasuke. Having fun?"

"Ino. Go and help Asuma handle Hidan, you don't have any blood like that for him to take. I'll see if I can take Naruto's Wind-mask opponent."

"You got it… sir!" Ino's voice giggled, which sounded just _wrong_ from the undead-looking Third Kazekage, and began moving across to fight the Jashinist.

* * *

Choji stared glumly at the unmoving body of his teammate. "I know that having a puppet version of one of the Kage of Sand is the best we could possibly contribute to the fight, but… it seems wrong, us doing nothing but guarding her body."

* * *

A lightning spear impaled the Wind mask's head just as it began to block another Rasenshuriken, and then the attack made it home and tore the mask to fragments, helped by Sakura sending in a Fireball to set the whole mess alight.

Naruto landed from his latest jump and topped off his Sage chakra again. "Which of us gets that kill?"

Sasuke shrugged. "I already have one, Sakura has one… you're looking pretty poor at the moment, Naruto."

"I'll take it, if only because that at least means I'm on level pegging with Ino." An explosion sounded from nearby. "Looks like Shika managed to get his kusari-gama past all those Water barriers and pin Kakuzu. Any objections to me taking this one?"

Sakura shrugged as Naruto built yet another Rasenshuriken. "We couldn't really stop you at this point."

* * *

Kakuzu couldn't move to direct his water walls properly since he was stuck staring at Shikamaru from the Shadow Imitation Kusarigama pinning his shadow, and the ludicrously powerful Wind attack tore him to shreds.

* * *

Hidan went down to a second decapitation after being pinned in an iron coffin, after which Naruto walked over and blew the immortal up with a clone's hand-delivered Rasenshuriken.

"Come back from that, bastard."

* * *

"Good work, everyone. That's two Akatsuki members down and both their rings retrieved. We'll send them down to the Research division immediately. And Waterfall send their thanks, as well as a vast amount of bounty money for finally killing Kakuzu. Sadly Hot Springs can't send anything for Hidan, because he wiped them out, though the accumulated bounties on him from various countries add up to a great deal regardless. Oh, and Sakura, Sasuke, I heard you worked with Yugito Nii last year. My condolences – on interrogating the man found in the ruins of the building, we discovered that she had been killed, her Bijuu extracted, and her body turned in for bounty."

Naruto nodded to himself. "She was the two tails' container?"

"Yes. The Five and Seven tails' containers are also dead, so Akatsuki is a little under half done."

"Explains the youkai in the statue, then." Sakura said to herself.

"On that front, the Three Tails appears to be finally reforming according to intelligence reports." Danzo gave a little wave at those words, and went back to shifting through his papers. "Since it's in our best interests to stymie Akatsuki wherever we can, we plan on trying to either seal it ourselves or – if that proves impossible – re kill it. Naruto, any thoughts?"

"Three tails is a hell of a lot of chakra. And if it's the Bijuu itself rather than a jinchuuriki, it's a less useful weapon because of the lack of finesse but much harder to kill – all the sheer bulk, for a start. Rasenshuriken is powerful enough to be a threat to one, but if it's a turtle then it's going to be focused in on defence. Hard to say. And if Akatsuki interrupt our sealing attempt, that means a three way battle with two S-class nin and a Bijuu – not fun."

"Understood. You have a month before it finishes reforming, so game out some possibilities and report back to me."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Soul Arias are Nasuverse territory.

* * *

Hawks:

Hayabusa: A peregrine falcon, from the Japanese name for the species.

Tobias: trainee to the position of Sage, name from the Animorphs book.

* * *

Otters:

Mij: Ring of Bright Water, book.

Tarka: Tarka the Otter, book.

Marlene: Penguins of Madagascar. Long range expert, has an Atlatl.

* * *

Mongoose:

Belisarius and Valentinian: The Belisarius series of books by Eric Flint and David Drake. Originally Valentinian was a human so fast that he earned the name of "The Mongoose". Other Mongoose will have names from the series also.

* * *

Rankings:

Divided into Genin (D rank), Chunin (C rank), Special Jonin (B rank), Jonin (A rank), Elite Jonin (Akatsuki member, into the S-class), Sannin and Kage. Kage here refers to someone even MORE powerful than the Sannin, and is an underpopulated class in Canon – the Third in his prime, the Fourth as of his death, Pain, Madara, A, Bee… there aren't many. All of them have either a ludicrously broken ability or five, or simply Kage rank skills in every area of being a Shinobi.

Canon:

Sakura was Chunin, and I think that's about right. High Chunin, perhaps, with a focus towards medicine and possibly edging into Taijutsu focused special Jonin, but she can't really fight against an enemy with a good store of elemental attacks.

Sasuke was technically a Genin, but that's not really right. His ranking probably qualifies as Jonin (he has good taijutsu, a weapon he knows how to use, a few high power attacks and two elements) but a hidden village might hesitate to promote him that far due to his attitude. That said, he handled Hebi/Taka well enough that he might have got the rank.

Naruto was (and still is) a Genin, which is a travesty. He's led squads pre-timeskip and led them fairly well, displayed masterful tactical sense in the doing rather than in the theoretical and scored telling victories against many major enemies. And post-timeskip he had most of his weaknesses evened out (Taijutsu was better and his counter-Genjutsu abilities were reasonable) and access to at least one massively powerful high A rank attack in the Great Ball Rasengan. Naruto probably counts as Special Jonin immediately post timeskip.

As of the Invasion of Pain, mind, he's got to the point where he's Elite Jonin (IE: Akatsuki member, on par with Itachi or Kakuzu) or even up a step to Sannin level. He did complete Sage mode, after all, which eluded Jiraiya. By now (after getting the chakra of the Kyuubi) Naruto's Kage. No question on that one. He's beating Kage level enemies, albeit with the aid of a support team, in minutes.

Kakashi was a Jonin before the timeskip, and afterwards I think counts as Elite Jonin. Sannin level still escapes him but barely – the Kamui is a vastly potent 'special' technique with no counter that I can see.

Vulpine:

Sakura is on the border between Special and Full Jonin. Her CQC skills are on par with the canonical Sakura, and they are NOT her strong point. That's her mastery of four elements. She allows other ninja on her team to punch above their weight because she can cover the gaps in their own skill sets. That she doesn't go up to Elite Jonin is because, unlike most Akatsuki members, she doesn't have an anti-army technique.

Give her a few weeks, though, and she'll rectify that. Especially now that she knows about Big Ball rasengan.

Sasuke probably counts as an Elite Jonin. His lightning elemental manipulation is getting fairly sublime and the Raijin fixes one of the major drawbacks of those attacks normally. He's up there in the S class.

Naruto? Run and hide. He's approaching Kage rank at a fairly impressive rate and his shortcomings are mainly related to subtlety. At least, that's how it appears. Nevertheless, he's not a full Kage rank fighter as of yet since his altered chakra states have severe restrictions to them – that, and he needs a better defence. Kage ninja can either dodge or block A to S rank jutsu all the time.

Kakashi is pretty much as in canon, but his Shiranui technique means he has the ability to heal anything – even though the chakra cost will in practice be too prohibitive if he uses it as an attack hits more than once.

* * *

Naruto's inner world has changed since that time four years ago he first gained the Fox summon contract. Now, it's an enormous town, easily bigger than Konoha, with Millie's slumbering form lounged across the wooded mountain on which the town is built. The town uses the contours of the mountain harmoniously, little streets trickling down the slopes to the broad thoroughfares that would, was it a real city, hold much of the commerce. One side of the mountain is a harbour with a whirlpool, while the other becomes a shifting desert; the city limits also the treeline. The entire structure is surrounded by the winds of a hurricane that never moves, with the town inside – that is, in the eye of the storm.

The town is the representation of his friends and comrades, and of Konoha. The desert is Suna (clearly), and the harbour with a whirlpool is a Minato with an Uzumaki - that is, his parents. The town is in harmony with the landscape because he's a Sage, and the hurricane is essentially the border of his mind. He has an "eye" where things he protects go, and the rest of it is due to his enormous levels of power. And, of course, a hurricane is a swirling maelstrom.

Sakura's inner world is still that field of grass with the cherry tree; however, it too has been changed by her development. Now there are dozens of trees, with a gentle wind whispering in the branches and carrying the petals all across the field. A stream runs through it, with a stone bridge across the water, and lanterns hang from the low branches of the tree. A single willow, the only tree not a cherry blossom, sits within a meander in the stream and hangs low over the water. One Sakura tends the lanterns, another dangles her feet in the stream, a third sits high in a cherry tree, a fourth leans over the bridge and a final copy of the girl reads books under the willow.

Beyond the boundaries of the field, delineated with a simple wooden fence, the grass becomes higher and far less tame. There are brambles, and thorns, and all kind of spiky plants hidden within. Where the stream runs out of the field is a mud construction, within which can be seen movement.

Lanterns, stream, breeze, bridge and willow represent Sakura's five aspects. Fire, water, wind, earth and medicine. (The willow tree, or Salix in latin, is the source of the drug – Salicic acid – that is the active ingredient in Aspirin.) The mud building is where her otters live.

Sasuke's mind used to be a harsh place, where the events of the Massacare played out in slow spiral around an obsession with punishing his brother.

Now, it has become much improved. The basic landscape is still that of the Uchiha district – though a great copper statue of Uchiha Madara rises above the houses – but nothing is present on the streets. In fact, it looks almost boring…

Until one looks up. In the skies above the remnant of his clan, a great thunderstorm rumbles, with the hawks of his contract circling in the updraughts from a hot day. Sheet lightning constantly flicks back and forth across the sky, but never strikes down… though there is always the slight greasy feel of a lightning strike about to come. And it can't be a coincidence that the statue of Madara, for all its' grandeur, is practically designed to be hit by lightning…

Regardless, Sasuke has acknowledged his clan and their past, but the true heart of his mind is the storm above. It has a beauty to it – severe, perhaps, but still majestic in the way of a storm.

* * *

On the Mangekyo Sharingan:

Each eye grants a power. Both eyes combined grant another. Canonically, Kakashi's eye grants Kamui, Shisui's eyes give a once-a-day suggestion and a once-a-decade mental restructuring, Itachi has Tsukuyomi, Amaterasu and Susano'o. The Eternal involves the doubling up of Mangekyo powers – the donors' and the recipients'. Sasuke's regular Mangekyo appears to be a copy of his brother's…

But everyone's powers are different. Sasuke's Tsukuyomi is lesser, flawed. His Susano'o bears the arrows, not the sword. And his Amaterasu is _Itachi's_ eye power (bestowed for the purpose of killing Madara) not Sasuke's, with his ability to manipulate them (for example in the Kagutsuchi shield or combining Amaterasu and Susano'o) being his own. This is because Itachi attempted to give Sasuke the Eternal straight away by transferring his own Mangekyo powers to overlay Sasuke's, but botched the job.

This is why the Izanagi is such a sacrifice – it involves the surrender of two thirds of one's powers with the Mangekyo.


	4. Chapter 4

"Any luck?" Naruto asked as he walked into the training ground, before wincing at a massive eruption of fire. "Ouch…"

Sakura walked over, panting. "Phew. Finally got that fire Big Ball Rasengan down. Anyway, apart from that not really. Several ideas but nothing concrete."

"Well, a mission came in and the Hokage assigned it to us."

"Why?" Sakura asked. "We're assigned to a mission in a month and to train for that, right?"

Naruto shrugged. "Seems that the old man decided that a good test for fighting a Bijuu would be if we got all the missions related to other sorts of demons. In this case, demon country."

"I have to admit, it'd be interesting if I can apply that suppression seal of mine to a resisting target," Sakura mused. "Right, I'll go get Sasuke."

"What's he been doing?"

"Messing around with the more esoteric sides of the Lightning element. He said he got some interesting ideas after seeing the Iron Sand in that last battle."

* * *

A greasy feeling developed in the air, like standing near a power line. Static sparks hummed on exposed metal tips.

Sasuke pointed the hilt of the Raijin towards a large hill, one that already bore the scorch marks of heavy use as a technique practice backstop. With his off hand, he took a small coin and dropped it, igniting the legendary weapon-

There was a bang, a hiss, and molten metal splattered on the ground.

He sighed. This should work, but he couldn't quite make it. A pity, really, as if he could it had the potential to match some of the great historical S-rank techniques. Forget the Chidori and all its' manifold variants; this one was his answer to Naruto's Rasenshuriken.

It was just too hard to shape the electric field that precisely. Yet. He knew the Raikage could use Lightning as an armour, so there was nothing theoretical against it.

Perhaps if he used metal supports to hold the charges required?

"Sasuke!"

Sakura came running up with details of their latest mission, and he filed away the prospect for later.

"So. Demon country sent for aid." Sasuke's Sharingan flicked off, having memorized the orders scroll.

"Yes. We need to go protect their high priestess, which of course means we need to work out a bodyguard plan." Sakura began flicking through her library of illusions.

"Twenty or so shapeshifted shadow clones a good start?" Naruto asked, and gestured for the team to move out. "Let's see… I think I can get Kuda to hide on her for a bit, which'll allow him to summon me to her if she's in immediate danger. Any details of the opposition?"

Sasuke shook his head. "The details said that all their Jonin – there are only three of them in the country – are accounted for, so that's good news."

Sakura took over. "Bad news, though, is that Moryo's a demon who was known for giving his subordinates upgrades that amount to something not unlike the Curse seal. Extra chakra source, more potent, that sort of thing."

Both the boys glanced at her. "You're the one with the most spiritual knowledge. What does demon mean in this case?"

She closed her eyes, rolling the name around in her head. _Moryo_…

"Demon country demons are all pure black chakra, which means they're unnatural and powerful but for the most part their bodies are weak – they're not anchored to the world like we are, so their chakra doesn't regenerate without a connection to a more powerful source. Moryo's name means… I think it's an echo of his true name, most exotic chakra beings have common names related to their true names. And I'm getting a sense of, of the many_._"

"So you think he's a sufficient source of power, then?"

"Yes. Above a certain point, inhuman chakra becomes alive like human chakra always is and is self regenerating."

Naruto shrugged. "So much for just letting him exhaust himself. Anything else?"

"Yes. Moryo appears in legends – indeed, in some history books. He tried to conquer the world with some kind of terracotta army, but didn't get far and all the soldiers of it were sealed away with his mind in one shrine, his body in another."

"And if one of the shrines was attacked, then it's going to have been the one with the mind." Naruto said with certainty.

The others looked at him. "What? Minds weigh less than bodies. Imagine carrying a demon body dozens of miles to the mind shrine."

"Okay. So we need to keep an eye out for enhanced soldiers." Sasuke brought them back on topic. "And some kind of terracotta army. That one'll be hard to deal with, Terracotta's an excellent insulator and means that the offensive elements don't work well against it."

"Would it be bad form for me to go Chakra Cloak?" Naruto asked innocently.

"Bad form? More like, never even try it." Sakura said. "It's a country whose entire point is containing demons, having one of the Nine apparently breaking free would mean they'd forget going after Moryo and switch to you."

Naruto winced. "Right, forget that." He nodded to himself abruptly. "Okay, Sakura should be the close-in support. She's got the most options. Sasuke, scout high and let us know if anything's coming in, then engage. I'll keep out a clone perimeter out and go for whoever Sasuke's not."

Sasuke nodded his approval. "Works for me. Infiltration countermeasures?"

"You two, and I'll stop to recharge Sage mode every few minutes. Should give us enough warning."

Sasuke then smiled slightly. "Convenient. We get a live fire test of our newest techniques. Pity I didn't make much progress on my current one, though."

"Which current one's that?" Sakura asked with a grin. "Don't most of them use current?"

"Nice one, Sakura!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You're corrupting her, Naruto."

* * *

"Ah. Good. The Ninja have arrived." Shion looked over Team Seven. "I have to say, I am less than impressed."

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, we get that a lot. Hidan and Kakuzu could correct you there, though."

Shion blinked, then looked more closely at him. "You have some kind of… taint to you. I can't tell what kind." Then she looked at the others. "And both of you as well. Why?"

"I've got kami blood way back in my family tree." Sakura shrugged. "Less sure about where Naruto and Sasuke get their traits from ultimately, but both are descended from the Sage of Six Paths."

"I see." Shion frowned. "So, which of you is the strongest?"

Sakura and Sasuke pointed to Naruto. "Skill is something we have much more of," Sasuke began.

"But in terms of pure strength, you can't beat Naruto."

Naruto pouted. "That's mean…"

"Good." Shion said. "That means he will be the one to carry me."

"Wait, what?"

Then Shion's eyes flickered into a strange purple pattern. When they stopped, she looked Naruto in the eye. "You are going to die."

Naruto winced, then shrugged. "Kinda figured. When? At the age of ninety-three, with Konohamaru as the Sixth?"

"No! In the next few days! Moryo's soldiers will kill you!"

Sasuke frowned. "How? And how do you know?"

"I see the future. And sometimes I… predict the death of someone near me. That's why there's so few attendants actually here in the inner sanctum, they're afraid of it happening to them."

"I repeat. How?"

Shion went over the received memory-of-the-future. In it, she had been stabbed in both lungs. So, as usual, she explained to one of the people around her that they would die in this manner – thus changing the future so they would protect her fatalistically and she would survive.

It was a cruel and heartless thing to do, maybe. But she had to do it – only she could seal Moryo. It was for the good of everyone.

Naruto snickered. "That's it? Did you actually see me die?"

"No, but it's obvious you did. Nobody survives having punctured lungs."

"Actually, Naruto can regenerate. Hell, I think Sasuke took out half his liver when he first tested the Sharp Spear and misjudged the length."

The jinchuuriki winced with the memory. "Yeah, that kinda stung. So don't worry, I'll be fine."

Shion braced herself for another future vision. Nothing.

Well, that was either very bad or very good. Either she'd die to the method she'd just seen, or she'd live.

"Actually, Naruto, thinking about it," Sakura mused, "Might be a good idea if she had some kind of body armour. She's not got a conditioned body like we do."

"If people are going to be throwing around ranged stuff? Good thought." Naruto thought for a moment. "Tell you what, I'll lend her my Chunin vest. That'll stop most bladed weapons, and I'll just substitute it with a Sage charge-up."

Both his teammates eyed it with some distaste as he took it off. "What possessed you to dye it orange, anyway?"

Naruto shrugged, and handed it to Shion. "It's my colour scheme. My mum was the Red-haired habanero, my dad was the Yellow Flash, it's frankly inevitable. I'm almost annoyed that my nickname has nothing about orange in it."

"Demon Wind is good enough, quit it. Remember, one of the Kage of Stone is called Onoki the fence-sitter."

Shion winced despite herself. "That's the name of a ruler?"

"Yep. Old Man Hokage has a much cooler one." Naruto hoisted her onto his back. "He's called the God of Shinobi, or the Professor. Well, we better get going. Where's that shrine with the body of the demon?"

"Swamp Country."

Naruto let her down again. "That far? Sasuke, you up to giving us some transport?"

Sasuke nodded. "Better do it outside, though. They don't like buildings."

"Oh!" Shion said suddenly. "We'd better get Taruho – my armsman."

"Where's he, then?"

"He showed us into the building, Naruto." Sakura sighed.

* * *

"Wow! This is amazing!" Shion laughed, raising her arms above her and feeling the rush of air over them.

Naruto made sure he had a proper grip on her. It wouldn't be good if the priestess of Demon Country fell off the hawk, after all.

"I… I'm sorry."

"Pardon?" Naruto frowned, looking more closely at her. Her entire demeanour had changed in just the last few seconds.

"I said I'm sorry. When I told you that you were going to die… that wasn't true. I was going to die. It's how my power of prediction works. My soul jumps back in time after I die, and then I tell someone else they're going to die, and that way I survive."

Naruto shrugged. "Not a problem to me. But it might work better if you just said you'd received a vision of your own death and gave all the details you could, that way they'd be able to protect you better, right?"

She smiled. "I suppose I'm unlikely to get stabbed in a forest today."

* * *

The Gang of Four continued their stakeout of Shion's shrine.

"Uh… boss?" Shizuku ventured. "How long are those ninja going to be in there?"

Kusuna shrugged. "Let's force them out. Gitai!"

Gitai took in his Dark Chakra enhancement, and slammed all four hands on the ground, sending bombs to blow up the structure.

They watched as the dust settled.

"Did we just kill them?"

Setsuna frowned. "Who did our recon genin say the Konoha team was again?"

"Three of the Four Seasons, I think." Kusuna volunteered.

"You idiots, they have two flight-capable Ninja on that team! They might have left hours ago, we'll have to go and head them off before they reach Lord Moryo's body."

Kusuna gave Setsuna a glare for showing him up, then recharged Gitai's serpent and they all began running for Swamp Country.

* * *

"Hey, look." Sakura pointed, and the rest of the group spotted the terracotta army standing guard outside a structure below.

Shion frowned. "I think that's the other shrine. They must have got here before us."

The three ninja exchanged speculative glances. Naruto came to a decision first. "Sasuke, I need to get on solid ground to charge up my Sage Mode, but once I am I'll cut you a path."

"Got it. Sakura, bring Shion with you." Sasuke tapped the wing of his mount, which began to slip sideways in the air towards a nearby hill.

"What? You're going to stay behind, Naruto?" Shion asked.

"Until those stone things are all destroyed." Naruto was unusually grim as he jumped down with the priestess. "Those things levelled villages on the way here, I want them gone." Once they were on the ground, he passed her to Sakura (who was enveloping herself in a haze of water) and began to concentrate.

Shion watched, intrigued, as Naruto's chakra morphed into something else unusual, and his eyes slit.

"You ready, guys?" Naruto asked. "I'll start blowing them up, then work my way left. You head right."

Both the others nodded, so Naruto formed a trio of clones and built himself a Rasenshuriken.

* * *

The Army of Ghosts turned, sensing in some way a new threat to their master.

Then some of them blew up.

* * *

Sasuke's Sharingan blazed. "Naruto, you got full destruction of them within ten feet of the epicentre. Ten feet beyond that they're mission killed, but after that the stone armour seems to have stopped the Wind chakra doing enough damage. I'd say switch to close-in."

"Got it." One of the three clones dispersed, and another two formed to continue charging. "Okay, two Wind Rasengan each I think, and I'll do blades."

The Narutos leapt into the thick of the battle.

Sasuke cloaked his presence with a fairly generic invisibility illusion. The constructs seemed to be more than mere golems, but he couldn't take the risk of the more esoteric Sharingan perception illusion. Glancing over at Sakura, he saw she'd done the same and added a neat little mist trick on top of that, using the droplets of chakra-saturated water in the air to refract her position relative to the mist. "Nice. Can you keep that up for long?"

Sakura nodded confidently. "Once the water's chakra charged it takes very little power to keep it in place. And it's also reconstitutable into a quick cutting water dance."

"I approve. Okay, I'll go in five." A massive detonation sounded from the valley below, where one of Naruto's clones had fired off something that looked a lot like the Atsugai technique Kakuzu used. Another, which Sasuke guessed was the original since it had the chakra-blades coming from elbows, knees and fingers, began the Third Form of the Fox style, savaging a pair of opponents then leaping back into empty ground to pounce again.

"Now!"

Apparently Naruto heard him, as a Rasenshuriken screamed in from the two clones left up on the ridge, flew over their heads and annihilated part of the shrine wall nearest them. This revealed a corridor that would allow them to bypass the melee at the main doors.

* * *

"Here's the seal containing the body of Moryo. It still seems to be closed, thank goodness." Shion sighed in relief, and her armsman patted her back.

"We're almost done, my lady."

"Okay. Everyone, stand back. I am going to perform the Shrine Sealing ritual."

Sakura frowned. "Why?"

"To… seal… Moryo's body?" Shion replied uncertainly.

"Why bother? He's sealed away alright."

"My understanding is that this version of the ritual is permanent, and will prevent Moryo from gaining his body back in any way."

"Well, if you say so." Sakura muttered to herself.

As Shion began, an enormous explosion sounded from outside and Naruto came flying in, hitting a pillar. "That hurt! Take this-oh." His voice dropped in disappointment.

"Problem, Naruto?" Sasuke asked idly.

"Stupid kill-stealing clones… nah, I'm alright. Most of the stone golems are destroyed and the rest are lacking most of their limbs."

"Good, good," came a voice. The team's heads snapped around, Sakura's misty sheath beginning to swirl more violently as the boys built up their signature techniques.

"Oh, no need for that." Yomi advanced from one of the smaller holes blown into the shrine. "Everything has worked out as I-" he dove to one side as a Wind Rasengan attempted to occupy his torso, then jumped straight into the barrier around Shion's sealing justu before Sasuke managed to electrocute him.

The voice of Moryo continued as its' host body fell apart. **"The purpose of all this was to hijack the ritual. You see, the true purpose of the Shrine Sealing ritual is both to unlock my true body, and to merge the participants, who cannot leave the shrine until this is complete. Which one comes out dominant is determined by the strength of their chakra, and that's exactly how I came about in the first place! Your **_**dear**_** mother made me what I am when she performed this ritual."**

Sakura cricked her neck. "Yeah, I'm going to say right now, that's a lie. The last bit, anyway – if you'd been created in the Shrine Sealing ritual, you wouldn't have had a chance to do _anything_ last time."

"Good point." Sasuke nodded. "So, this means?"

"We wait for him to take corporeal form, then Shion drops the barrier and we blow him to bits thoroughly enough that his chakra is the weaker one."

Sasuke split off a shadow clone, who went to suggest something to Naruto. The blond nodded enthusiastically and made a horde of shadow clones of his own, before sending them all rushing off outside.

The roof blew in as the two Sage Mode clones outside expended the last of their Sage Chakra by blasting the top off the shrine.

"Was that a good idea?" Sakura asked, keeping one eye on Moryo as he impatiently waited for the seal on his body to release.

Sasuke spun the Raijin. "Yes. It's setup."

"Alright, then… Naruto'll be able to explode bits off him with insert A ranked technique-"

"I resent that!" Naruto called. "I'm using Rasenshuriken." Outside, massive gouts of wind-boosted flame began shooting skywards.

"S rank, then… and I'll just see what happens if I ram a Youkai suppressor onto his face." She flicked through her set of tags. "Ooh, I forgot about this. Gold chakra explosive tag!"

"**Wait, what?"** Moryo shouted, having overheard her. **"How is there someone with Gold chakra here? I made sure the only one died!"**

"Two points." Sakura gave a cocky grin. "First, you missed the people with recessive bloodlines. Second, you just more-or-less admitted to me and to everyone else in the shrine that Shion's mother had Gold chakra like me. And, since it's hereditary, like Shion herself." Thunder rumbled outside as a huge storm developed.

"**How do you know all this? This lore was forgotten!"**

"_I have seen and understood all things."_ Sakura whispered to herself.

The seal unlocked, and Moryo shot into his body as fast as he could. The great dark mass of evil arose from the pit in which it had been contained, malevolence oozing from it.

A quick _poof_ of smoke, and Shion was replaced by a Naruto-clone. "Go ahead, Sasuke!"

Sasuke raised the Raijin. "Kirin."

A great beast screamed, and lightning connected heaven and earth.

* * *

Naruto was the first to look back at the glowing crater at the centre of the shrine. "Guys – did we get him?"

Moryo _howled_, reforming rapidly, but sizzling where his dark form touched the semi-molten stone.

"Guess not. My turn!"

Fifty shadow clones formed with a thought, and the screeches of many Rasenshuriken filled the air.

"**Oh, come on."**

* * *

"He's still coming back?" Naruto asked incredulously. "Sasuke hit him with a three foot lightning bolt and then I applied something that could give Millie a hard time!"

"My turn now." Sakura lobbed a Kunai into the (by now rather deep) crater.

A flash came out, then a horrible scream. She turned to the others and looked smug.

"Yeah, yeah…" Naruto muttered. "You have the gold chakra to a level usable in jutsu and seals, go you."

Sakura threw a v-sign, then frowned. "So it wasn't the tag I was picking up… Shion, mind letting me have a look at that bell?"

Shion shot a glance at the thrashing form of Moryo, and walked over.

"Hmmm… Interesting. This seems to have some kind of switch function, currently it's sealing away your gold chakra. But the bad thing about it is that it doesn't allow for a mix state like mine – either you're pure blue or pure gold, though it does let you use the other type via the bell." Sakura straightened. "Okay, I know how to do this. First, if you switched you could destroy both Moryo and yourself. Second, there's no need for it. Get over to Naruto and give him some of your chakra – via the bell, okay? Naruto, go into Sage Mode and build a Rasenshuriken with the contributed gold chakra. Gold and Black in their pure forms tend to negate one another, and that'll make this Rasenshuriken actually have some bite against him. Do that, and the merger effect will end with Shion in charge."

Naruto bashed his fists together, already in Sage Mode. "Right! Let's do this, Shion!"

"Can you control chakra that's not your own?"

Naruto grinned. "Most of my combat style revolves around it, whether it's from a clone, nature or the…" he tailed off. "Never mind the last one. So, here we go. Stay down as it forms."

* * *

Moryo finished regenerating yet again. **"Okay, that was extremely annoying. Where are my four ninja, they could be really useful at a time like this."**

Once more, the screech of a Rasenshuriken approached. **"This again? It didn't work last ti-"**

Sakura had underestimated the effects. The gold chakra in the Rasenshuriken reacted with the black chakra of Moryo's form like explosives.

When the three Konoha nin picked themselves up again from the increasingly unrecognisable ruins of the shrine, they saw two things. Shion, glowing a faint gold as she absorbed the power of Moryo safely, and a hole so deep it looked like lava was coming out.

* * *

"Well, not much point trying to fulfil the plan." Shizuku muttered, staring at the volcano that had replaced the site of their benefactor's body.

"You think?" Setsuna asked. "Right, let's just go find some village that's willing to take us in. I hear Kiri still have shortage problems with skilled personnel. Or we could go join Oto?"

"Given our extensive criminal records, Oto sounds better."

* * *

Kakashi frowned. "Run that by me again? Sasuke called down lightning?"

"I call it the Kirin. The strength of the thunderstorm determines its' strength, and it costs essentially no chakra. Definitely a good finishing move."

"I see. And it worked to at least temporarily damage Moryo. Good to know. Now, what about that seal of yours?"

"I decided it would be easier to just blow Moryo up repeatedly so that Shion could absorb his chakra. It's helped in one way, her chakra reserves are now respectable enough that she could probably undo the bell seal in another couple of years and from there it's not far to ascending. It is my judgement that her descent stems from Ame-no-Uzume."

"Bringer of dawn. Interesting. Well, I'll let the Hokage know what happened sometime this month."

Naruto shook his head. "You have no concept of the chain of command any more, do you?"

"Only where it pertains to my subordinates, which you three still are." He looked contrite for a moment. "Just."

* * *

"Naruto. Trouble."

Naruto looked up from where he was monitoring a thousand or so clones trying to create a tornado. "What is it, Sasuke?"

Sakura flickered into the area. "Apparently Konoha had some trouble before we got back with ninja on flying machines. Well, they're on the way again, and a mission Team Kurenai were on seems to be mixed up in it."

"Gotcha… kind of. What mission were they on?"

"Escort. Some girl called Amaru showed up to help Tsunade heal everyone, and we offered here an escort back home. But there were complications – she was shadowed by Sky-ninja, and they destroyed her village while she was away."

Naruto suddenly looked northeast, cutting Sakura's explanation off. "Never mid, I think I know most of the rest. She was shunned growing up, she had a demonic beast inside her, and despair set it off."

Sakura looked startled. "Er, yes, that's what the report said they'd managed to infer. How?"

"Millie's awake. Big blast of youkai from the northeast, and it's not one she's familiar with."

Sasuke picked up on the terms. "Youkai specifically?"

"Yep. And she should recognize any youkai on the planet. But it's also got some of the properties of that black chakra Moryo had."

"So that's how you were able to tell the rest?"

"Yep again. Jinchuuriki territory, all right. Sasuke, get us some height – I don't want to have to fight whatever's coming inside Konoha itself."

Sasuke nodded, slashing at his thumb in a practised motion. "Intel?"

"I'll check with the old guy once we're airborne."

* * *

"Youkai? You're sure?" Mandias closed his eyes, and sniffed. "Yes, there's something in the air. You say Millie doesn't recognize it?"

"No, not at all. Which really worries me." Naruto adjusted his grip on the elderly sage slightly as the hawk banked. "Youkai's fragments of the Ten-tails, right? Could this just be a tiny little bit?"

"Possibly. We never did work out what happened to the consciousness, though none of the Nine have anything that can be traced back to it. The Ten-tails was pure malevolent evil, and we're lucky it moved slowly enough life could survive where it wasn't."

Naruto shrugged. "Couldn't it have just vanished?"

"We could be that lucky, but I've learned not to bet on things like that. Especially around Millie."

"Fair point."

* * *

Everyone was silent for the next few minutes as they headed towards the direction Naruto had pointed. One of the hawks broke the silence first.

"What is something that big doing in the sky?"

Sasuke glanced down. "I don't quite see it yet." His sharingan flashed on for a moment. "Wait, there's a dot… but I can't get anything more from it."

"It is some kind of, fortress, or city. It is huge."

"More than that," Mandias said, suddenly tense, "The area of youkai ahead has greatly expanded. I think the flying object is being powered solely by whatever is giving it off."

Millie snarled inside her host. Something about it not being an ethical power source, and an old enemy called 'Mr. W.'

"Wow, she's really keyed up at the moment." Then the hawks broke formation, diving to the sides as a number of one-man flying machines bore in on them.

Sasuke's eyes flicked on. "That gear of theirs drains their chakra to run it."

"Neat." Sakura narrowed her eyes for a moment, Flickered into empty air and then Replaced with one of the pilots. "Naruto! Dismiss Mandias for a bit, I've got you a better ride!"

"I like how you think, Sakura!" Naruto replied, the Fox sage vanishing from his lap as he got ready to switch with her. "You want me to go ahead and summon you in?"

"Yeah!" Then a thought occurred to her. "Just be careful how much you pump in, all right? Don't blow this up!"

Naruto winced. "Good point. Okay, two, one, go!"

* * *

A horizontal comet flew straight into the forward superstructure of Ancor Vantian, and exploded. Naruto tumbled from the wreckage, coughing.

"Damnit, still too much…" he steadied himself, landed in a crouch, and bit his thumb. "Summoning: transport!"

As his foxes, then his teammates, appeared in puffs of smoke, Naruto connected himself with the natural world and entered Sage mode. "Summoning: again!"

Mandias shook his head. "You and your silly comments…" He closed his eyes and entered Sage mode himself. "Yes, there's definitely something very powerful here. There's also…" he paused. "They're familiar. The boy with the half-dog bloodline, the boy with the hive and the Hyuga girl."

Sakura blinked. "You remember Hinata's family name but not the others?"

"She's got a Dojutsu, those are important." Mandias indicated one of the large buildings making up the flying fortress. "In there, I think she's fighting someone."

* * *

Hinata spun away from a shockwave of darkness, executing a nearly instantaneous Kaiten to deflect the attack, and Body Flickered behind Shinnō to attack. He created a shield out of shadow arms like the Leech had, stopping her from targeting his Tenketsu, and she danced back out of close range to refocus.

Things weren't good. Kiba and Shino had been caught with a Darkness Wave earlier and were incapacitated. Poor Amaru was still recovering from having the beast forcibly ripped out of her, and her own Jyuuken attacks were being easily blocked.

Always blocked, though. Never dodged.

Idea.

She darted back in, chakra building in her hands, and a palm strike flashed out. As normal, he created the shadow arms of the Leech and blocked her.

So she took one of those arms, anchored herself to the floor, and used those points of contact to swing in a Lion Fist charged to about her maximum safe level.

That sent Shinnō into the wall, and nearly herself as well – only her quick reflexes allowed her to let go of the arm before it pulled her along with her enemy.

Kiba coughed. "Took you long enough."

She looked at him blandly. "My normal approach is useless here. Though his chakra is sufficiently out of control that I think sealing up his tenketsu might make him explode."

Shino looked their opponent over, swaying slightly. "How is it that he is able to react to your attacks?"

"I think it's some kind of mental reading effect. When I was indecisive about my response a moment ago, he didn't guard anywhere until I made a decision – and then he was limited to the least dangerous choice."

Amaru's voice came from the corner. "The zero-tails… it can do that, yes. It's like it has a mind that stretches out of its' container, like there should be an intelligence big enough for it." Hinata and her team turned to her. "I've had it happen a few times before – I can sometimes tell when people are unhappy, when they're upset…"

"And only now do you know what was really going on." Hinata said, understanding.

A roar made them look around.

"I will kill ALL of you for that!" Shinnō bellowed, as he tore the wall apart with his shadow-hands.

Hinata simply smiled. "Three… two… one…"

The roof came imploding inwards, with a shape of red and orange falling through it. "Hey, bastard!"

Naruto arrived, claws first and six solid tails lashing. "Let's fight."

* * *

One of the great stone faces of Ancor Vantian collapsed, Shinnō's flying form going straight through the cheeks. Naruto leapt after him, wincing as his Second Stage form shuddered a little with instability. _Damnit, Millie, what's gotten into you?_

_**Don't… know. It's just making me angry, just like I was when Madara controlled me.**_

_Are you smashing up my mindscape?_

…_**maaaybe.**_

_Jump in the damn ocean! It's much harder to break – and don't take that as a challenge._

_**Awww.**_

_That and it's the representation of the influences of my parents on you, both of whom are related to water._

Naruto returned to the battle, and just barely stopped a sort of dark orb of the Black Chakra, held in his opponents' hand. "Hey! Copyright issues!"

Three of his tails pushed him up as he sprang backwards away from the deranged doctor. "This is how you do it." _Millie?_

_**You mean it? Time to blow something up without consequences?**_

_This once, yes._

Naruto surrendered control to Millie, who took some of his offered chakra and mixed it with her own. _**You know, I'd never have the concentration to do this were it not for the way Ozzie tricked me. He didn't tell me how long it would take to learn how to blow things up with my mind.**_ As she finished, the Bijuu ball formed in her mouth. _**Now, how do I fire it again-ooh, shiny!**_ With that, she lost concentration.

Good thing the Bijuu Ball was forgiving as attacks went.

An enormous directed explosion of chakra shot out of her/their mouth at Shinnō, who moved his shadow arms in the way but wasn't able quite to properly block it.

Naruto reassumed control as he landed on all fours, and noticed a flicker of movement over in the scorched crater that looked like it went most of the way through what was left of Ancor Vantian.

Hinata blurred to a stop, a satisfied expression on her face. "I thought so. The amount of chakra in the air was sufficient to overload his senses." With another little chakra flare, she vanished back to the room the rest were in just as Shinnō's system overloaded.

Naruto watched as the Zero-tails burst out of his body. "Ouch… now that's why you need to watch out for how old you are when you put insanely potent chakra sources inside your body. For starters, if you're old enough to do it yourself, you are too old."

The Leech began to advance on Naruto, building up an unusually large amount of chakra by drawing from Ancor Vantian instead of the other way around, but was interrupted by a blizzard of Chidori senbon and a B-ranked Water technique to the face.

"Naruto!" Mandias called, running into the room on the heels of the two Special Jonin, "I've worked out what it is! It's the Ten-tails' brain!"

"What?" Naruto replied, keeping one eye on his tails as they fended off the Leech's arms, "You mean this is the thing's mind?"

"No. Only it's brain. A huge fragment of thinking chakra, with nothing to fill it, so it seeks out the emotions of others. I think it was transferring some of the old instincts of the Ten-tails to Millie, though luckily her own personality is stronger."

"Great." Naruto began to slide across the floor as the Zero-tails started to reel his transformed body towards it. "Anything I can do about it?"

"Oh, I see. There should be some kind of control mechanism somewhere on the fortress, destroy it and it'll be unable to maintain what sanity it has."

With a quick bite, Naruto removed one of its' chakra arms and spat it out. "Disgusting. Why do you want to send it insane?"

Sasuke had already left to go find Hinata. Sakura shrugged. "If it can't think, it can't plan properly?" With that, she followed him.

"I have to admit, it's the best plan so far. Damnit, stop trying to remove those!" Naruto briefly reabsorbed a tail to get the dozen or so hands clinging to it to let go, then remanifested it and bundled them up with it. "I'd love to actually let loose on it, but like this my choices are basically physical combat or hundred-foot crater, and it's moving too damn much to aim! At least Shinnō was kind of slow!"

He glanced over at his summons. "And you're not helping!"

Aya shrugged. "Big fights are cool!" Niyi looked across at her fellow summon for approval, and took some of the food he'd taken out of nowhere.

Mandias looked disapprovingly at the bucket of popcorn. "Be that as it may, Naruto, there is no need to worry. You're drawing on so much power compared to… it? That the Zero-tails can't possibly do any permanent damage to you."

"That doesn't make it hurt less!" Naruto's voice cut off in a yelp as one of his tails gor pulled especially hard. "I knew there was a downside to transforming like this!"

"At least your skin hasn't exploded. That was a possibility for this few tails."

"Now you tell me…"

Abruptly, the Zero-tails' arms all went completely stiff, flinging Naruto towards a wall (which collapsed when he hit it, adding to the general rubble), and it screamed.

"Finally!" Naruto said, shaking his head to clear it, then inhaled massively. _I hope this works…_ his tails came up around his muzzle and he exhaled a great blast of chakra-laced wind. The six tails caught the stream of air and added rotation to it.

"Spiral wind cannon!"

The original attack that he'd learned off the Forbidden Scroll all those years ago hadn't been very clear on how it was to be executed, and every other time he'd tried it hadn't worked. The main problem was just that he couldn't work out how to add the rotation before it left his mouth without destroying said mouth, and afterwards it was usually too late. By the relatively low stability of the vortex that he produced now, actually, it wouldn't have worked with fewer than six tails to get it rotating.

But it was enough to tear a hole right through the body of the Zero-tails, and it began thrashing about wildly in what were clearly death throes.

The entire structure shuddered as something important broke with a sizzle. Ancor Vantian began to list.

Naruto raised what was technically a paw. "Abandon ship?"

"Aye!" the three foxes replied in unison, and vanished in puffs of smoke.

The Jinchuuriki loped for the side and leapt off. _Well, they say cats land on their feet… that's true for foxes too, right?_

* * *

WHAM.

"Ow…"

Naruto rolled upright, shook himself, and released Millie's chakra, with a wince at the feeling of his chakra paths contracting. He shrank back from the fifteen foot or so fox form he'd been in to his normal human shape.

"Man, I didn't pay Jiraiya enough for the seals on these things…" he grinned, checking that his clothes were all still there. "Right, where are the others?"

* * *

"This is all quite worrying." Mandias agreed, seated on his haunches. "If the brain of the Ten-tails survived separate to the other pieces, then it's possible – possible – that the intelligence did so as well."

"Does that mean something bad for it now that we killed the Leech?" Naruto asked.

"To be honest, I have no idea. It might interfere with any plan to put the Ten-tails back together again, or it might make it easier. We can't tell."

Lani had looked unsettled for the last few minutes. "Mandias, I have a problem. I think some of my records may be inaccurate – I was looking into them to see what we had on Madara."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed for a moment at the name.

"Who was our first summoner?"

Mandias closed his eyes, casting back through his long memory. "I think it was one Mari. The girl whose nickname was 'the beast'."

"Second?"

His voice was more confident now. "Shuichi."

"Third?"

The old sage listed off the names one by one, Lani checking them off against her small archival scroll and looking increasingly worried.

"And tenth?"

"Naruto here."

"And you're certain you didn't miss one?" She pressed.

"I was here when the summon scroll was first made, and I have guided every one of the companions of the Fox. I remember them all well."

"Right." She unrolled the big scroll. "Because there are eleven spaces filled."

* * *

"How very strange." Mandias looked disturbed. "I didn't know anything at all could interfere with the connection inherent in the scroll. Hold on a moment."

He closed his eyes again and slipped into Sage mode, running back through his memory like the pages of a book. "The first to sign did so at the left end of the scroll… nothing wrong with the second… third… fourth… fifth… sixth, heh, she never could form the characters right… seventh… eighth… ninth…" His eyes snapped open. "It's Naruto's signature. That's the only one out of place. Madara's signature was in the ninth slot, and now it's in the tenth as well. But he only signed once. Someone has snuck their name onto the scroll, and it's Madara Uchiha – which is impossible, because if he's in the ninth slot, then he's dead."

Sasuke blinked, shocked. Sakura frowned. "Is it possible to fake a signature on the scroll?"

"No. It has to be a name that's yours somehow. A birth name, a given name, a true name… but not a false name."

"Then…" Sakura's mind flickered with concepts. "Is it possible to change your name somehow? For the purposes of this? I mean, could someone change their name to Madara Uchiha, sign the scroll – or get their name on the scroll by that connection otherwise – and change it back?"

"That's… disturbingly possible. It would be incredibly hard to change any of the names in question, since they're fundamental parts of the person, but if our Uchiha-massacaring hypothetical villain did manage that then they would be able to add themselves to the scroll like renewing a contract, reinforcing it. It wouldn't even need them to be in the same plane as the scroll."

"But who would do such a thing? And if this is the person we've all spent the last decade and a half calling Madara, then why pretend to be him?"

Sasuke slowly raised a hand. "Just so I can be sure, this hypothetical villain did do all the things that I hated about who we thought was Madara, right?"

"Yes."

"Then it appears that I still hate the same person, just under a different name. What's the fake name they're using?"

"I think Itachi's letter to you said 'Tobi'."

Sakura turned chalk white. "Kun numbers."

"Pardon?" Sasuke asked. Sakura turned to him, and began counting.

"Hitobi, Futabi, Mibi, Yobi, Itsubi, Mubi, Nanabi…"

Everyone's minds raced ahead of her.

"Yabi, Kokonobi…"

"Oh, crap." Naruto breathed.

"…Tōbi."

There was silence for a minute.

"This explains… much." Mandias said softly.

* * *

Thorougly shaken, the three swore among themselves to never mention that in the Elemental countries, and returned to Konoha after deciding that if they ever met Tobi on their missions they would just run. If he was Deidara's team mate as Itachi's letter had suggested, it wasn't exactly as if they'd want to stay near the duo even under normal circumstances.

* * *

"Hey, guys."

Sasuke and Naruto froze, before carefully retracting their knife-hand strike and sweep kick respectively. "Sakura?"

"It's time. One of the teams in the area had a Yamanaka, and they reported to Inoichi. The Three-tails has finished reforming."

* * *

"Well, here we are." Sakura glanced over at the scratch force. In addition to her own full team, Shizune, Tenten and Ino had been brought along for the sealing. Lee, Kiba and Shino completed the ranks – unfortunately Hinata and Neji had both been occupied elsewhere on clan business and there hadn't been the time to make up their teams.

Their mission was simple: Seal the three-tails in a storage scroll. Apparently Jiraiya had some kind of special seal design that could take three tails of power. Sakura had looked it over and pronounced it "possible".

The problem was watching out for anyone else in the area. That was what most of the ninja were along for.

Shizune gestured to the three other sealers. "Come on, we need to set up the Search mode."

The other three kunoichi moved to the corners of a square, and raised their arms with Shizune. On a signal they all cut their thumbs, activated their copies of the seal technique and fed them chakra.

The complex seal array instantly blossomed into the sky, thickening and solidifying so that when they cut the feeds it stayed there, before floating off to begin quartering the vast lake.

Naruto watched it drift over the water. "That's really, really impressive. That something like that could seal an active, uncontained tailed beast… I mean, most of the time they have to be fought to a standstill."

"Yeah, heh… about that…" Sakura said nervously.

Naruto didn't even turn around. "I have to fight it, don't I."

"Pretty much. Most of the power is in the containment array, there wasn't much left for the capture array. Just hit it until the barrier can solidify properly, then we'll get a fox to summon you out."

His eyes closed, and he drew in nature's power. "Okay. Ready now. And just in time, too."

Sakura blinked. "How can you tell?"

"A Tailed Beast? Any sensor worth their salt could sense that once they were within their range, and being connected to nature gives me a lot more than normal."

Sakura cursed inventively. "I can't believe I forgot that! Of all the times to have that Hyuga clan meeting… we could have sorted this out much more easily."

"Not every day that their clan head's second child heads off to a chunin exam. Ah well, we're here now." Naruto formed a small squad of clones, and began spinning up a Rasenshuriken. "Three, two, one…"

He hurled it.

* * *

Less than a second later, the Three-Tails emerged with a roar from the water-and got a Rasenshuriken to the face.

* * *

"Sasuke?" The jinchuuriki asked absently.

"Not much damage, that shell must be one of the toughest things in existence. Get some good storm clouds going and I'll be able to blast it when you want."

"Sounds good to me. Guys? Two of you charge up and help boost Sasuke's fire, other two come with me." The three Sage mode Naruto charged off in unison, all three of them working the seals for Driling Fang Bullets.

* * *

Shizune watched the explosions start. "Wow… I never really grasped the kind of thing Team Seven deals with before…"

Kiba chuckled. "What are we, chopped liver?"

Akamaru barked something. Kiba turned pale. "What! No, you can't take a taste to check!"

"He has a point." Shino stated in a monotone. "Our last major mission involved a demonic entity on the same order as a Tailed Beast… although our utility was limited."

"Heh, yeah. That mission was confusing."

"Why?" Tenten asked, unsealing the Garian Sword and spinning it around her palm for a moment.

"Our enemy was called Shinnō."

"But are you not called Shino, my youthful Aburame comrade?" Lee asked, confused.

"Exactly my point."

"Ah, I see!"

"Er, guys…" Ino asked, looking up. "Was there a massive thunderstorm here a minute ago?"

* * *

A two-foot bolt of lightning hit the water and blew a crater in it, then a pair of Rasenshuriken hit the Three-tails in rapid succession.

Naruto dispelled the last of his charging clones. "Damn, not long left. Sakura! I've got two options here!"

"What are they?" She called back.

"Get eaten or go fuzzy!"

Sakura shook her head for a moment. Naruto considered being _eaten_ a viable option? "Second one!"

"Okay!"

He dumped his Sage chakra in a single massive Pressure Damage, then drew out seven tails of chakra. That was the point his second stage actually started getting really big.

* * *

The Three-tails sensed the presence of another like it, and obeyed the relatively primitive animal instincts it had reverted to on reincorporation. Rival! Fight! Kill!

Everyone watched in awe as the two titans battled, Naruto's fox paws glowing with red-orange youkai as he applied the Water Walking exercise on a grand scale.

"Does somebody have a can opener the size of the Hokage monument?"

A few people sighed with relief, not quite believing before that that this really was Naruto in control.

"Yipe! Why do tailed beast things always go for the tails!"

A massive tidal wave splashed up from the impact as Naruto shook the Three-tails off.

"I suggest we run." Shino calmly stated.

* * *

"Okay, Yūkimaru, you need to take those pills in order to increase your natural link to the Three-tails."

"Really?" the boy asked. "What for?"

"So you can call it to the surface, of course!"

"But it's right over there." He pointed, and the Sound-nin followed his finger.

The gigantic turtle appeared for a moment flying through the air in an eruption of water, before a huge lightning bolt shot down from the still-present clouds and slammed it back into the lake.

Nurari gaped. "How did we miss that?"

"Who knows." Rinji muttered.

"I don't?" asked Gozu, sounding uncertain.

"Who cares how, let's get over there!" Guren shouted, and took off over the water with her team in pursuit.

* * *

"That's me out." Sasuke stated, gauging the disappearing clouds. "That last one exhausted the storm cell, no more Kirin today."

Sakura winced at the impact from the Turtle hitting the Fox in the chest with its' tails. "To be honest, I think Naruto might do better if we were standing a bit further off."

Sai gave his normal creepy smile. "Exposing people to the fear of inflicting collateral damage is a major problem among high level ninja battles."

"I knew it!" Sakura said, fight temporarily forgotten. "I knew all of those bland sayings of yours were from a book! I was reading that one last night!"

"Clearly you are not very far into Danzo's Big Book of Ninja. That's in the first chapter." His smile changed slightly. "Though I think the third chapter is more appropriate here. There's a quote that says, if most of the force is on the sidelines, nine times out of ten the battle gets bigger."

"Attack!"

The team spun, seeing Guren's squad approaching.

"Oh, look. Orochimaru's experiments." Sakura cracked her knuckles. "Earth, Fire, Water and three unknowns. One of them has a kekkei… toru."

"Toru? Three elements?"

"Yes. The leader, the woman with the green coat. There's Earth in there, but I can't quite tell the other two elements. Possibly it's like Ice with Earth added."

"You want to take her, or should I?"

"You do it. The Earth and Water outweigh the Wind – her element is vulnerable to electricity, if it follows normal rules."

Sai drew his sword in one hand and his brush in the other. "Sakura. I will engage the one with the grenade launcher."

"Got it. I'll deal with the gas-mask guy." A swirling mist of water built around her.

"Hey!" Kiba shouted. "What are you guys looking at?"

"Sound ninja!" Sakura called back, and advanced wrapped in thin streamers of high-speed water.

"Now she tells us…" Kiba tossed his head. "Come on, guys!"

* * *

Flawless crystal met chirping blade, and gave way to it. Guren scowled, discarding her Lance. "Damn you… what is that?"

"It's called the Lightning element. It is weak to Wind, and strong against Earth. Water enhances it."

"I didn't mean that!"

"Oh, the sword. Not telling." Sasuke spun away from her next attack, a salvo of crystal shuriken, and Flickered behind her.

"Crystal imprisonment wave!"

That Sasuke dissolved into nothing as the attack hit it. "One handed hand seals. I see. Electric Aura Armour." A curtain of electricity sprung up over the body of the original, who hadn't moved. "Am I right in thinking that since electricity disrupts the structure of your element, then your indirect-attack entrapment techniques don't work now?"

Guren frowned for a moment. "God's Crossings!"

A series of clear crystal obelisks erupted from the ground in a line marching towards Sasuke. When the final one was about to appear directly under him, he gave a little smirk.

Nothing appeared.

"Thought not."

"Why didn't you even dodge? Don't underestimate me!"

"Sharingan."

Guren flipped through a series of handseals again. "Jade Crystal Wall Eighth Formation!"

"Lightning element."

"Jade Crystal Prison!"

"Lightning again."

Guren almost snarled. Pulling up a massive amount of her remaining chakra, she slammed her hands on the ground.

"Jade Crystal Labyrinth!"

An enormous, gemstone-shaped prison formed around Sasuke, coming together from a number of flowers in seconds.

Sasuke experimentally pushed the Raijin into the wall, and it sizzled but only broke up a small area. On removal, the area healed up again.

"Interesting. The large structure disperses the electricity."

Guren's voice echoed through the maze. "Give up! You can't keep up that Lightning armour forever, and your Sharingan is no help here! There's too much to see, not too little!"

"I'm not just my eyes." Sasuke's free hand began to chirp, and the Raijin's edge lengthened. "An important principle is that you can't just maintain something with no cost. And I imagine that this enormous cage of yours takes up a lot of chakra to maintain, even without having to repair it. So, how much chakra do you have?"

Sasuke barraged the walls with Chidori Senbon, then stabbed the enlarged Raijin into one of them. "And in a Labyrinth, the way out is just to keep your hand on one wall."

* * *

Sakura frowned as she ran into a dense smokescreen. The fire-user was clearly more skilled in indirect arts than most Fire nature wielders – seriously, how many ways did you need to set something on fire? – but her Water nature made her a hard opponent for any Fire user, and True Sight made a smokescreen worse than useless.

She coughed. Well, if you remembered to cover your mouth, anyway. A quick improvised Water technique and the soot left her lungs, and moving her water-soaked Forehead Protector band across her mouth dealt with any more on the way.

"Who are you?" A voice ghosted out of the mist. Sakura ignored the direction it was coming from, closing instead on the real Kigiri. "Nobody develops Water techniques for that specific a situation."

Smoke clones loomed out of the mist, and his voice continued. "It does not matter. You cannot fight an enemy who is like smoke."

The swirling aura of mist around Sakura abruptly sharpened, becoming thin razor blades that spun in an intricate pattern. "Cutting Water Dance."

"Heh, you see, that doesn't work. The smoke clones just reform, and – hang on, shouldn't the technique have ended by now? Er, Binding Smoke Prison!"

Sakura blinked, shifting her other element from Fire to Wind. "Dispersion of water."

The watery streamers slowed, joined into a continuous bubble, then blasted outwards in all directions.

Kigiri staggered back, startled, as it began to rain black water. "That picked up all my smoke particles!"

"I know. That's why I did it."

"Exploding flame shot!" Kigiri rubbed his hands together for a moment, then produced a shower of fireballs and shot them at Sakura. "Take this!"

"No thank _you._" Analyzing the chakra release, Sakura determined what he was doing to create the fireballs like that. "Neat. I have to say," Water rose up in front of her to block the fireballs, "You've got a much more diverse selection of fire attacks than most people I run into. Here's one of mine."

"I thought you were a Water type!" he shouted. "That and Wind! How are you going to-"

Sakura blinked, and the water shield fell away. The next fire shot hit her and splashed off her, thanks to her fire aspect's fire resistance.

"Dance of the firestorm."

Just like the water had earlier, the fire and wind wrapped around her body, screaming with speed and power.

Then she vanished.

Kigiri took a moment to work out where she'd Flickered to, and that was too long. Her snap kick took him in the right kneecap, and the hungry flames took him.

"That was less than pleasant…" she shuddered, switching back to water and washing off.

Then she staggered. "Wow, that took more out of me than I thought. Suppose it must have been overwhelming his chakra in the smoke."

* * *

"Dark smoke sphere!"

Sai batted away the grenade that was headed closest to him, and unfurled his scroll. "I see you use smoke attacks. Is there a reason for that?"

"Huh?"

"Now, tell me about your mother." Sai put brush to scroll. "I've been trying to work out how Naruto does his friendship attacks, but all the psychology books seem to go on about something that hardly seems related."

Kihō shook his head in confusion. "I don't know what you're trying to talk about! "

"Clearly."

"Was that an insult?"

"Yes." Sai continued painting.

"I don't have to take that from you! Smoke Dragon!"

"Smoking does not make you look cool, and I shudder to think where the dragon bit comes from." Sai flourished his scroll, producing an ink gryphon from it, and nodded appreciatively as it swallowed the smoke dragon whole. "My attacks are Water natured. Water makes it so that smoke is washed out of the air."

"Er…"

"You are out of moves already? That is sad." Sai gestured forward. "Get him."

"Wait, wait, no! Please!"

"You shot me with a grenade launcher." Sai shrugged. "I have no sympathies."

* * *

Tenten shook her head sadly. "Bats? Really? You sure you want to do this?"

Rinji shrugged. "My bats are useful."

"Oh, I'm sure they're a good utility power, it's just that… they're regular bats. Not even large."

"Really? Well, can't you hear something? Just on the edge of hearing, this ringing sound? Makes you feel woozy, makes you feel-"

Kiba and Akamaru kicked him in the head. "Shut up! That sounds like a dog whistle going wrong!"

Tenten blinked, then shrugged. "Works for me. Shall I finish him off?"

"Go ahead."

She unfurled a scroll. "Everything including the kitchen sink attack!"

A number of large appliances flew out of the scroll and pummelled Rinji, ending with a metal sink and pipes.

Kiba frowned. "Not that I'm complaining or anything, but… why?"

"Comedy value. I filled it last month when we had to demolish a house."

* * *

"I see you are a most supple and youthful opponent!"

Lee launched a series of kicks, and Nurari flowed out of the way of them effortlessly.

"Marvellous! I can see that this is a true test of my youthful skills!"

"Do you always say that?"

"But of course! Youthfulness must be proclaimed constantly!" Lee finally managed to land a hit – though Nurari deformed with the blow to avoid being damaged – and found that his hands were covered with a strange, slimy substance.

"Ah, I see you discovered my slime suit. It will stop you from moving, resisting your attempts to move even as I rob them of their force." Nurari giggled.

A light gleamed in Lee's eyes. "A challenge! Sixth Gate of Joy!"

"Wait, what?"

"Morning Peacock!"

Nurari discovered to his dismay that his Slime Suit was not in fact immune to evaporating.

* * *

Gozu slammed his fists together. "Puny little Konoha ninja! I will break you!"

Ino glanced over at Shino. "Is he on steroids or something?"

"I do not know." Shino formed a handseal, and a number of bugs swarmed out. "Can you target him with a mind-body switch? It would be helpful."

"He'd need to be fairly still first. Dad taught me the faster version, but it still takes a second or so."

"Then I will hold him still, so you can do that." His bugs coalesced into a pair of clones. "Iron Mountain Leaning."

Ino watched his attack. "How does that even deserve a name! It's a tackle!"

Shino strained, trying to hold the larger ninja as his muscles swelled alarmingly. "Now, please."

"Oh, sorry! Mind/Body Transfer!"

Gozu struggled for another second or two, then stopped and grinned. "Done!"

"Very well." Shino released the possessed Ninja. "Please hold still."

A few orange-red ants crawled out of his clothes. "These are the single most venomous insects that do not naturally enhance their venom with chakra. I have enhanced them with chakra. They will sting the body of this Ninja so that he will die, then you will leave his body."

"Got it! Ouch. Ow! Ow! Those things hurt!"

"Usually that is the primary purpose of an insect sting in any case. The venom will take effect shortly, end your technique."

Ino's body jerked back to life. In the intervening time, it had fallen over and begun floating in the lake. "Damn, that was rough…"

Gozu seized up and keeled over.

* * *

Sasuke came to a blind wall. "If I have this layout correct, this is going to be the centre through here."

"Go 'way. Leave me alone, I'm tired." Guren mumbled, almost out of chakra.

The Raijin carved through the wall. "Surrender, and you'll get to live, though you're not going to be using any jutsu any time soon."

"Why are you sparing me?"

"Because you're the leader of this team, and you presumably know a lot about Orochimaru's plans." Sasuke swung his legendary sword, and Guren let out a short cry as it sliced off the two last fingers on each hand.

"That should stop you from performing any handseals." He picked up the fingers, and sealed them into a spare scroll. "If you cooperate, you may get them back."

The crystal labyrinth dissolved.

* * *

Sasuke looked over to the main fight. "Naruto! How much more?"

Naruto had pulled out an additional tail at some point, and had the Three-tails in a choke hold. "I think it's weakening!"

His eyes flickered up. "But I broke the containment seal. Probably when I had to use a bijuu ball against this guy."

The turtle thrashed one final time and stopped moving.

Shizune called to the sealing team and got them to rally to her. "Quick! Before it recovers!"

* * *

"Finally." Sakura sighed, leaning on Sasuke for support. The technique had taken hold, and the Three-tails was trapped inside the barrier.

Naruto slumped down next to them.

"Tell me about it. I'm just about wiped out after that. Channeling that much chakra for that long _burns._"

"Everyone else isn't in much better shape either." Shizune said. "Tenten and Kiba are in the best shape, then Sai, Shino and Ino, but everyone else has hardly any chakra left and Lee's muscles are badly overstrained."

Sasuke glanced at the hilt of his sword. "Were it not for that, I'd have run out of chakra there."

"Still, we won." Naruto said. "And that means-"

A flicker of motion slammed into his side and exploded.

Sasuke's hand grabbed the Raijin so fast it looked like he'd flickered it into his hand. "Akatsuki attack!" A second explosive came in and he sliced it in half before it detonated.

"Naruto!" Shizune ran over to him.

It didn't look good. The explosive had been a small one, but it had blown his arm off at the elbow and he seemed to be going into shock.

"We've got to get out of here." Sakura said quietly. "They're after the Three-Tails, and we can't contest it. Not with only Sasuke still in fighting shape."

"I hate to do it, but you're right." Shizune said. "That all this was worthless, though…"

"It wasn't worthless. We stopped Orochimaru from getting it."

"True. Everyone! Retreat to the rally point!"

* * *

Tobi waved at the retreating Konoha-ninja. "Goodbye! Come again soon!"

"Tobi, you really annoy me."

"Do I, sempai?" Tobi asked innocently. "Is that a good thing?"

"Shut up." Deidara took a scroll out of his jacket. "Time to blow this barrier wide open, yeah!"

"Ooh! Is that one of the big, big fireworks?"

"…yes, Tobi, it's a firework."

* * *

"I see." Sarutobi shook his head sadly. "It's a pity that we couldn't deny Akatsuki the use of one of the Bijuu, but we have at least managed to obtain useful information on my former student's plans. Oh, how is Naruto?"

"Still unconscious."

* * *

"Did someone get the number of the Bijuu that ran me over?" Naruto muttered, as he came back to woozy awareness.

Then he spotted his arm. "Oh. Right. Better deal with that first, then." Closing his eyes, he concentrated hard.

Slowly, with a few stops and starts, he shapeshifted his arm back to normal."Ergh… that took a lot out of me."

Shizune came in. "Naruto, you're… how did you do that?"

"Regeneration. Now, I'm starving. Regrowing an arm does that. And what the hell happened?"

* * *

"Well, that sucks."

"Tell me about it." Sakura sighed. "All that effort, and then Akatsuki come along and steal it."

"I suppose so. Though at least we got out of there before they managed to learn anything about us."

* * *

Itachi coughed wetly, then looked at the blood-spattered hand he'd covered his mouth with. _As expected. I will have to fight Sasuke within the month. I think I have the adaptation to my eyes' chakra network completed – I hope it will affect the Amaterasu correctly._

"Kisame. Leave me, I have private matters to deal with."

Kisame grinned. "What, writing a letter to your girl again? Sure, Itachi, I'll let you have that privacy of yours." The shark-man shifted his legendary sword on his shoulder. "Don't know why you're so hung up about it. So what if you were a clan heir, that was seven years ago! And it's not as if you enjoyed it anyway, least I think that's what you were trying to say with the whole murder thing. Or was it that they just didn't like the girl?" He chuckled, then left the room they were staying in in a small town on the border of Fire country.

Itachi said nothing more. He'd carefully crafted the image of some secret paramour, but he didn't think Kisame actually believed it. Brash or not, the man was an S-ranked missing nin. No, it just gave him the excuse he needed to look the other way whenever Itachi did his "private matters".

He silently gauged his chakra. _Good. The disease has not affected that, at least._

Sitting down at the ratty table provided, he began to write two letters.

One, to his brother, detailing the battleground he had chosen – a fortress dating to before the Founding – and how to disarm the multitude of traps leading into the Uchiha fortress. He left out one in every ten of them, of course. No sense letting his brother grow complacent.

The second was simply addressed to "bearer."

_You have received this letter because you are the one gauged by the Crows to be the best hope for them to continue. The summons under the banner of the Yatagara are exacting, precise, and demand that the individual consider themselves as part of the collective. You will find them to be loyal, so long as you can meet their high standards. You will find them to be skilled, so long as you display skill in return._

_Continue their legacy._

_Itachi, of the Uchiha Clan._

He carefully rolled up both letters into scrolls, then his hands flickered through the handseals of summoning at the kind of speed that explained why he was – even now, dying of lung cancer and with his eyes barely able to see in black and white – still worthy of the name he'd been called in Konoha.

_Paragon._

Not a _prodigy_ of the ninja arts. Prodigies could be skilled in Ninjutsu, or the subtle art of illusions, or in seals. There were even prodigies in specific fighting styles. No, Itachi had been seen as the next God of Shinobi, a man to whom all the ninja arts came as naturally as breathing. More naturally, now.

And, like the last, he despised the need for them. Such were the ironies of history.

His palm hit the tabletop with no more force than was needed, and a trio of crows materialized.

He handed the first letter to one. "Go. It is the Hawk summoner you are to seek." That one would not be stopped by Madara. With Itachi's illness advanced to this point, Madara knew that he would be contacting Sasuke for his last desire – a death by his brother's hands. And that would, as far as Madara was concerned, make Sasuke finally out in the open and manipulable.

He put it out of his mind, and turned to the larger two. One of them bore a scroll in her claws, bearing the emblem of a three-footed crow – this was his summon contract. The other was older and only a little larger, but had taken Itachi the most chakra to summon. This was the Crow's Boss.

"Magoichi." Itachi inclined his head. The term was part name, part title – the leader of the Crows was always Magoichi, and their previous name never referred to again.

"Itachi. Why?"

"It is time. I will not last out the year. You must find another."

"Indeed."

The younger crow looked out the window. Itachi raised his hand, and the Magoichi laid a wing on her back. "No, Sayaka."

She frowned, then nodded. "I see. A messenger is one thing, but this another."

One of the reasons Itachi prized his summons was their keen intellect. Like him, they rarely needed many words either to say or to hear.

"I will summon Sayaka and yourself as part of my murder in my next skirmish. Let Madara think I was ill."

"And made a mistake."_ Hence the unusually high chakra cost._

"Yes. Seek out the summoner best for you. My preference would be Konoha." _But I would not mind if you went elsewhere._ The words did not need to be spoken.

"We will do as you request. Let the red bell toll once more."

Once more, the Uchiha nodded. This time in memory, of when it had tolled for him. "Is he ready?"

Magoichi cocked his head. "Close. The transplant is done. It will be three months before the eye has recharged."

"So be it, then."

With that, both crows dispelled themselves.

* * *

AN: Yes, I think that's who (or what) Tobi really is in the manga. The mind of the Ten-tails.

Because it would explain why he's been systematically wiping out everyone who might possibly be able to control a Bijuu, as well as why he's reforming the Ten-tails, why he's got the most foul chakra… even why he's happy when Sasuke becomes eviler.

The Crows are based off the Saika faction from the Sengoku era, specifically as portrayed in the Sengoku Basara games. Sayaka is the real name of the Magoichi seen in the third game.

A Yatagara is a three-footed crow which was the historical symbol of the Saika.

I think the Crystal release makes sense as a Kekkei Toru - it has a lot more versatility and is a lot more broken (except against Sasuke's lightning, of course) than most other elements, and it looks a lot like the Ice element techniques.

I think this is the first time outside the side stories that Millie actually got any dialogue, interestingly.


	5. Chapter 5

Sasuke unrolled the scroll, and blinked. "I see."

"What is it?"

Wordlessly, he passed it over to Naruto.

"Oh, I see. Well, we'll help you get there. I know you don't want us interfering in the fight itself, but you know we'd do it in a heartbeat if you did, right?"

"Yes. And… thanks." Sasuke closed his eyes for a moment, then stood up. "I have some equipment to gather."

"Oh, what is it?"

"I am an adult by the laws of the Uchiha clan, because I can perform fire ninjutsu, but I am not a ninja by their laws. This is my last chance – my only chance – to rectify that. Uchiha ninja, true ninja, bear the Sharingan. They are skilled in its' use, in ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, and the common Uchiha tactic of knocking down the shuriken an opponent uses with their own."

"And you're all those things."

"Yes. Which is why I must prove it to another ninja of the clan, and be officially recognized."

Naruto was silent for a moment. "I think I know what you mean. It's important to do things properly."

Then he clapped his hands together. "Still, no time like the present to get started, is there? And we'll need to be ready, as well, because Itachi has Kisame as a partner and we'll need to keep him busy. Do you think he'd react well to a Wind-Fire rasengan? Or to a fire-boosted Rasenshuriken?"

"I neither know nor particularly care. Excuse me." Sasuke walked to the edge of the training ground and blurred into Shunshin.

Naruto shrugged, and formed a clone that shot off to alert Sakura and Sai. Hopefully the albino ninja would be available, for air cover if nothing else.

* * *

"Okay. Sai, I think we're going to need you overhead – watching for Akatsuki members other than Itachi and Kisame. Sasuke, I've left three foxes in Konoha with orders to summon you back as soon as one of them disappears – summon Aya to get back there, and take Itachi's body or at least the eyes. We can give him a decent and honourable burial if you get the body."

"I understand."

"Good. Sakura, we're likely going to end up fighting Kisame. Do you have any of those fancy seals that allows water breathing?"

"No, Naruto, but I do have some of Tenten's oxygen pills. Just take one at the start of the fight. No need for a complicated solution."

"Hee, fair enough. How do these work anyway?"

"They're dehydrated air."

"Oh, okay."

Sai leaned over to Sakura. "I do not think that is possible. Is it?"

"No. But they're really fairly complex and he operates on simple explanations."

"I see. An example of what is commonly known as 'lies to children'. You explain in a way that the subject is able to understand."

"Anyway. Sasuke, where are we headed?"

"The Uchiha built a number of hideouts around the countries during the Long War. This particular one is the eighth, built by Uchiha Madara to commemorate his becoming the leader of the clan – and now that I think about it, to commemorate his contract with the Fox as well. The symbol is of eight swirls surrounding the kanji of "Fox", though I imagine he was a little saddened he couldn't have made it the ninth hideout and matched it to his number on the contract. Regardless, it is in a strategic location in the forests of Fire country."

Sakura frowned for a moment. "You presumably mean, a strategic location in the absence of the forests. A trade route that was then rendered inaccessible by the forest creation?"

"Possibly. It did begin as a fortress, and transitioned into a hideout. Maintaining them was for formality only – or so the clan as a whole thought."

"Right. Lead the way."

Sasuke nodded, checked his equipment – in addition to the normal loadout and his Raijin, he also had an enlarged shuriken pouch and a number of storage scrolls – and leapt off into the distance.

* * *

Danzo lifted up a sheet of paper, and looked at it more closely. "Hizuren? Have you seen this?"

"What is it?"

"Uzumaki, Haruno and Sai are investigating rumors of Akatsuki activity in Fire country."

"That's hardly unusual. Is Sasuke with them?"

"That's just it." Danzo handed over a second scroll. "He's applied for three days' bereavement leave over the death of his brother, and another four convalescence."

Sarutobi quickly worked it out, and sighed. "Oh dear. Well, at least it's a matter outside our jurisdiction."

* * *

Sai stooped out of the sky on one of his ink birds, sword drawn, and impacted hard on something in a small depression off to the side of the rest of the team's route of travel.

"That's going to be Kisame. See you, Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, forming clones.

Sasuke inclined his head slightly, and was gone within a second.

A pair of Great Breakthroughs and a Fireball shot through the intervening trees towards Sai's targeted location as he ascended away on a bird, looking somewhat the worse for wear. Water justu followed him, for a moment, until the attempt to turn Kisame from sushi into a more well-done fish dish arrived.

"Well, Sakura?"

"Nope. He caught it in Samehada."

The two special Jonin jumped aside as a high pressure, very thin stream of water cut down some nearby trees.

"I miss Sasuke already."

"And I keep telling you, I haven't worked out how to aspect lightning yet! It's not as easy as Sasuke makes it look with his broken sword!"

"Can't it repair?" Naruto frowned, a clone disintegrating under water bullets.

Sakura sent a Wind blade scything into a ballistic shark made of water. "Not the point, Naruto, focus!"

"Can we evaporate off all his water?"

Sakura blinked, and looked at Kisame. "Not with that kind of chakra supply. In fact, by the looks of it, he's about to fill the valley with water."

Naruto blinked. "Wait, what? This is a mile across! I know he did that big thing in Suna, but that was a narrow canyon!"

"That was also a Jonin level chakra supply. He's got an amount of chakra better measured in _tails._"

"Have I mentioned how much I hate chakra drainers who have the capacity to actually drain me before?"

The two of them jumped over a tidal wave as Kisame released about a million tonnes of water.

Sakura gave the depth an appraising glance. "Damn. I can't summon, on this kind of terrain my otters would be torn to shreds by his sharks. Any thoughts?"

Naruto snapped his fingers, and his eyes turned yellow. "Rasenshuriken?"

"Unlikely to work, not with a sword that capable at absorbing chakra. Any chakra-laced wind would lose its' cutting power, and he might even be able to force-detonate it." Sakura then looked around. "And why hasn't he killed us yet?"

"Few clones. Two… one… and he just pegged the last one. Take cover!"

A massive burst of water shot through the space they used to occupy.

* * *

Run forward. Don't stop.

Stop, left three paces, throw kunai at ceiling, dodge right, replace with block twenty metres further down the corridor…

Sasuke's Sharingan shone in the darkness of the Uchiha Hideout as he traversed the complex series of traps. Many of them were like tests themselves – one brought most of the roof down in a small section, so a new aspirant had to demonstrate use of the Replacement with a conveniently pre-dropped block of stone. That or use some more esoteric technique.

At least one – a deadfall trap – required the ability to predict over a second in advance in order to avoid being trapped in a dead end. The Uchiha had put a great deal of effort into these, in the absence of actual wars to fight in. And they had occasionally chuckled at the idea of a Senju – which really meant, to their minds, someone without the Sharingan – trying to infiltrate the place, and failing horrendously.

Sasuke privately thought they hadn't really thought through the implications of the Hiraishin, but that was neither here nor there.

At length – though to an observer not in the time-distorting grip of the Sharingan, it would probably have been in a very short space of time given the circumstances – he emerged into the central chamber of the hideout. A large chamber, with a throne at one end.

In which Itachi was sitting.

"Brother." He said courteously.

"Sasuke." Itachi replied. "How are you?"

"Well, brother." He said, slightly uncomfortable.

"I am glad."

Both looked at each other for a moment, searing the image into their Sharingan. Both knew, whatever happened, it would be among their last chances to see the other.

Then Itachi blinked slowly, and when he opened his eyes he was all business.

"Is the applicant of true Uchiha blood, bearer of the Sharingan and child of the clan?"

"I am." Sasuke answered, standing in for who would under ideal circumstances be his sponsor.

"Has he been trained as a ninja, taken a life, been willing to bleed for his comrades?"

"I have."

"Have his eyes awoken in combat, improved in combat, grown to see the truth, the future and the workings of another's mind?"

"They have."

"Then let the applicant be tested, and if the testing be successful, let him take the title of Ninja of the Uchiha Clan." Itachi completed the formula, and stood.

Sasuke was already alert. The tests were nonspecific in written records, except that they tested every aspect of being a shinobi, but-

"Kai!"

A layer of illusion shattered, revealing Itachi standing ten feet to the right. A simple trick, barely even an illusion by the standards of the Sharingan, but fatally effective against most ninja nevertheless.

Just as expected of his brother.

Sasuke wove an illusion of his own, a subtle thing of electricity, and projected it out through a lightning senbon. If it stuck, it would alter the relative speeds of nerve impulses in the body. He had used it once before, and the result had impressed him – it had not been immediately noticeable, but his opponent had missed a clearly reflexive move twenty seconds later with fatal results.

Of course, it didn't work on Itachi, who spotted it with ease and broke it like glass. That wasn't the point. The point was to show imagination – that particular illusion had looked almost like a lightning ninjutsu, for that was what it halfway was, and that demonstrated for his assessor his ingenuity.

The sharingan illusion had been something else entirely, when he'd infiltrated the one Itachi had cast and made it appear as if he'd broken the illusion with a sealed Dispel. It meant he could-

The illusion he'd piggybacked on shattered properly. Itachi applauded slowly.

"Good work, brother. I almost missed that. I assume the intent was so you could build in a displacement of your own?"

"Yes. One millimetre per second in a jump, and correct the trajectories of projectiles. Eventually I would be able to slip out of your line of sight entirely and use a large jutsu."

"Useful, though since the Mangekyo is of a higher order than the normal Sharingan it grants greater control over illusions cast with it. Observe. Tsukuyomi."

Sasuke looked away before the final word, but a shuriken went flying over his head with the speed of a striking snake and reflected Itachi's eyes, so they could make contact with his own.

Everything became darkness.

* * *

"The realm of Tsukuyomi. An example of the kind of powers a Mangekyo Sharingan has. Sasuke, are you ready to fight an illusion of this magnitude? I do not know if Madara possesses something equivalent, but I would assume so given his ability to influence Bijuu."

"He's not Madara." Sasuke interrupted, secure in the knowledge that Tsukuyomi took place entirely inside his own mind and was unreachable to any other. "Madara died at some previous time. We checked Naruto's summon scroll – the last signature before his is a formerly binding fake of Madara's. We're as worried as you." Sasuke stretched his neck in the bonds as his brother reacted with shock.

"In fact, while we're not sure we think his name holds a clue. Tobi."

"I am familiar with his alias." Itachi said, and rubbed his eyes. "What of it?"

"Sakura worked it out. The conventional forms of the titles of the Tailed Beasts are Ichibi, Nibi, and so on. But there's more than one type of number, so if you use Kun numberals Tobi means ten-tails. And we fought the brain of the ten-tails a few weeks ago, it was the zero-tailed leech."

"You think the mind of the ten-tails survived? It's certainly possible, and…" Itachi sighed. "It would explain his ultimate objective. All this time, I have wondered why he wanted to unite the beasts, since the ten-tails returning would essentially be the apocalypse. But if he is the mind in truth, then it makes sense." He held up a hand. "I fully understand – you're not sure. But we have to work with this assumption, especially if Madara is dead."

"It's chilling. And I speak as someone who's sparred against a jinchuuriki who was holding back, in two tailed mode. And been at the front lines of a duel between jinchuuriki and bijuu." Sasuke shrugged as well as he could. "Though I have to admit, some of that unsettled feeling comes from how Naruto's going to be dead or nearly so if Tobi ever succeeds. And a bit of the rest comes from how he appears to have good odds of being the Messiah."

"Do we even have that concept?" Itachi asked, curious. "I recognize it, but I thought it was foreign."

"I think Nagi has some of the right properties?" Sasuke mused. "But anyway, Tsukuyomi. The ultimate illusion. Invades my mind. Got it covered."

Lightning danced around his hand for a second, then the world shattered.

* * *

A split second after Itachi had initiated the Tsukuyomi, both brothers collapsed spasming.

Itachi stood first, but retched, giving Sasuke a chance to clamber unsteadily to his own feet.

"What on earth did you just do, Sasuke?" he coughed out.

"I induced an epileptic fit in myself." Sasuke replied, blinking rapidly to try and recover.

"That, foolish brother, is probably the most idiotic thing you have ever done."

"Worked, didn't it? You were inside my brain, so when it went wrong it got you as well."

"Risky, and foolhardy, and unaccountably effective. This is what happens when you live in an unsightly manner."

"No, if you live in an unsightly manner I arrest you." Sasuke fired back. "Military police and all that."

"And your commander, Hatake, is still out on the streets?"

"I don't equal his rank yet."

Itachi inclined his head slightly, poise recovered, then threw a barrage of Shuriken. Sasuke replied with his own. This was a set piece, and an Uchiha trick that was useful with suprising regularity. Especially when the teammates of the Uchiha could sneak around the side of the big flashy duel.

Sasuke gave ground, half a dozen shuriken of his flying straight at Itachi instead of at the oncoming weapons, and Itachi had to cut off his own barrage to deal with them, which gave Sasuke a chance to throw another few along that path.

Itachi forked his own attack sequence, and Sasuke copied him, and within a minute there were sparking shuriken collisions along the entire thirty-metre stretch of room separating the two.

Both finally ran out of shuriken, and Itachi bowed briefly to Sasuke. "Effective trick. But what else would you have done?"

"Chidori shuriken. I've got a few shuriken that I electroplated with chakra-reactive metal in reserve, and if I infused them as lightly as possible they may have passed unnoticed. They'd destroy many of your shuriken for a few of my own, granting me an edge in ammunition."

"A useful piece of equipment. Pass."

The two brothers stared at one another for a few seconds more, then leapt.

Fights between Sharingan wielders were strange things, affairs of probability rather than certainty. When the battle was one of illusion, the duelists could appear motionless and unable to perceive the world around them, almost as if not fighting at all however desperate their struggle. When the battle was an affair of Ninjutsu, spectacular, hard to control, unstable moves that relied heavily on chakra control were mixed with absurdly simple little attacks that had been refined to the point they were performed with fewer seals than normal, denying the Sharingan the chance to copy.

And when it was in the realm of taijutsu, or even more when it was a mixed battle, the real sparring took place a second or so in the future. Both combatants narrowing the field of possible next seconds of the battle to their best choice given their opponents.

The battle may have appeared fairly ordinary for high paced ninja combat, to an observer – though there was an unnatural fluidity in the motions of the Uchiha, a sense of no energy wasted, no muscle overextended or underextended even at the phenomenal speeds of ninja battle.

But if the observer had their own sharingan, they would see a mental battle of wits to dwarf the actualized manoeuvres.

Sasuke's mind considered using a phoenix web with a quartet of wire-guided kunai, then saw Itachi's plans shifting to take that into account and use it against him, causing him to abandon doing that and switch to a Lightning illusion to induce flash blindness – Itachi responded to that – Sasuke changed his plans again…

The Sharingan saw around a second into the future and slowed things down for its' wielder by a factor of about four. Coupling that with the incredibly fast reactions of a ninja, the result was that Sasuke and Itachi had iterated their attack sequences between twenty or thirty times by the time they were finally put into place. And this was occurring for every tiny moment in the battle.

There was a good reason fights between Sharingan wielders were so rare, back when the clan was still in one piece. It tended to create one hell of a migrane once the battle was over.

Itachi finally dissolved into crows when one of Sasuke's knife-hand blows hit home, and reappeared over by the throne. "Impressive. But an Uchiha must be the fan to the flames. He must know fire."

Both brothers inhaled, flipping through seals as they executed their favourite high power fire techniques. They reached the Tiger seal at the same time, and a Grand Fireball rammed into a Fire Dragon.

Sasuke's choice of the more complex, harder to control move was deliberate. He'd got to know it well while trying to build a lightning version, which still frustratingly eluded him.

The two attacks impacted with a great crash, instantly driving up the heat in the room substantially. Sasuke kept the body of the dragon going with more Fire chakra, encouraging the dragon's jaws to expand and swallow the fireball Itachi had produced.

Any moment now…

The fire reached too close to Itachi for him to tolerate. "Sasuke. This is what it is to master Fire. Amaterasu."

The black flames produced so much heat it was like stepping from a winter's night into hot springs. Sasuke felt sweat pop instantly, and it began burning away at his fire.

But the heat level did not continue to increase like it would with ordinary flame.

Sasuke dropped his Fire Dragon and held up his left arm, the palm of which began to glow a bright yellow. In the moment he had as his fire technique unravelled, he studied Amaterasu carefully.

Interesting. It was extremely hot, but it only spread by direct contact – presumably for reasons of ease of use. If it were truly as hot as the sun's fire, the entire room would have been turning to vapour. No, it was doing something else… something entirely stranger.

It was burning _itself_ up, like some kind of snake eating its' own tail. And it was also consuming what it was on… no, it was deeper still. It was somehow more _real_ than normal fire.

In short, it was on a slightly higher plane. Like the black chakra that fuelled it. Like Sakura's golden dance of aspects, and the altered chakra states Naruto used.

It was _Fire_, as much as a concept as anything.

Then the seal on his palm triggered, sucking the entire conflagration into it and containing it successfully.

Itachi watched impassively. "A fire containment seal?"

"Yes. I theorized that if Amaterasu was a more pure concept of fire, it would be affected by seals in a similar or even greater way. That said, I have a use for this."

Sasuke pointed his palm at the ceiling. "Kai!"

Amaterasu raged again, and the roof exploded outwards.

* * *

"Log Thrown Accurately!"

Sakura blinked. That one had been a little strange even for Naruto. "Tell me, do you think that you might perhaps be running out of ideas?"

"What gave you the clue?" he asked, as a ballistic shark flew at them. He lobbed a Wind Rasengan at it, and what actually reached them was finely divided piscine predator.

An ink gryphon leapt out of the sky in a cross between a pounce and a stoop, falling apart into nothing as Samehada intersected it. Sakura glanced around frantically, only to spot the enormous column of black fire. And that all the evaporation from Kisame's artificial lake was really getting a head start on the storm clouds Sasuke would need.

"Okay, have we tried me making a hundred clones, jumping at him, replacing with boulders and then repeating that?"

"Well, no. Go ahead."

* * *

Lightning chirped around Sasuke's hand. "I have always been more at home with the storm than the fire, brother. I am the Thunderhawk, in the bingo books. Observe. This is what I use for your Amaterasu."

The lightning danced up to the clouds.

"It is Kirin."

As the blast hammered down, Sasuke drew the Raijin and charged. That wouldn't have finished him off. Not Itachi. Not his older brother.

And, indeed, when he could see through the dust it revealed Itachi in armour of materialized chakra, made in semblance of the Storm God.

"Susano'o. Last of my three Mangekyo powers, and the most potent." Itachi was sweating now, with the effort – and Susano'o had a damaged helmet. "I must congratulate you. Without this absolute defence, I would be dead."

Sasuke brought the Raijin in as he ran, and rammed it against the interposed Yata mirror.

"I am sorry, Sasuke, but the Yata is inviolate. It is the conceptual form of a mirror, that reflects attacks with no loss."

The electric blade sizzled on the surface of the mirror, then Sasuke spun it around to block as Itachi brought the Sakenagi into play.

The sake forming one legend evaporated on the lightning of another, but neither made any headway. Their powers were evenly matched.

"There is no such thing as an absolute defence, brother." Sasuke said quietly. "A wall crumbles. A shield rusts. And a concept can disappear."

"Still the child. Even now."

"But more importantly. A mirror reflects. But an object that is stronger than the mirror will break it, not bounce off."

Sasuke jumped backwards, and raised the Raijin for a moment. With a sound like all the cloth in the universe tearing at once, the entire storm cell discharged into it in a single strike.

It hummed dangerously, growing hot, and expanded to far greater than normal size. The younger Uchiha gritted his teeth as sparks flew off it, struggling to maintain control.

Then he swung it back almost to his neck, heedless of the danger, and swung a stupid, amateur, heroic blow.

Enough power to blow a small village off the map hit the Yata Mirror, rebounded, and met itself coming the other way.

The explosion finished off the job the rest of the battle had done, levelling the Uchiha hideout.

* * *

Itachi staggered forward through the rubble, coughing. Ahead of him was his brother, struggling to stand.

"When… I was despairing, Sasuke… all those years, after killing the clan… I thought of you. You, my little… baby… brilliant, _strong_ brother. You were my light, Sasuke… never forget it. You are the new light of the Uchiha clan."

Sasuke finally managed to stand, and faced his brother.

"I-. I'm sorry it had to come to this."

A tear went down Sasuke's face.

"But I do have to kill you."

"Planned on it… for years. Just… make it quick."

Sasuke's hand went out to his right, and sparked.

The Raijin, attracted by the pulsed electric currents, flew into his hands. The blade was shattered, barely a stub. Sasuke turned it off, then carefully placed it over Itachi's heart. Itachi didn't try to stop him.

"I am glad." He struggled to say. "That the Uchiha clan…. Will not die with me."

Sasuke turned the sword on again, then wept like he hadn't since he was eight. Like a broken-hearted child.

* * *

Naruto threw a pair of Rasenshuriken, one as a shadow for another, and quickly replenished his Sage chakra. The moment the first hit Samehada, he detonated the second.

"Any luck?"

"No." Sakura replied. "That sword's too damn big, he hid in the blast shadow. A purely physical attack might do, but you'd need a non-Chakra fuelled attack powerful enough to shatter steel by the looks of it."

Yet another ink bird dissolved on the sword, then Sai landed next to them. "We should retrieve Sasuke and go. Kisame will not be as good at telling when we have left for the next few minutes."

"Huh?" Naruto asked.

"I saw that Sasuke's fight is over. And as for the other matter, I have been mixing in poisons with my ink. It took quite some time to determine one that would work on someone with the features and constitution of a shark, but eventually I managed. He will be paranoid that we will attack again until it wears off, which will be soon enough that I really think we should get going."

Sakura shrugged. "Fair enough. You go, we'll use the summon network."

"I shall." Sai tapped his bird, and it set off on a crown-hopping trip through the forest.

* * *

"Sasuke."

He turned, tears streaking his cheeks and a whorled pattern in his eyes. "Naruto?"

"I'm sorry, Sasuke, but we have to get back to Konoha."

The Last Uchiha nodded heavily, and pulled out a fine silk sealing scroll. It was the work of a moment to place his brother inside, and then Naruto performed the seals to summon Kaen.

A second after the big fox appeared, he and all the Konoha ninja vanished back to their training ground.

* * *

Kakashi placed his hand on Sasuke's shoulder, who started to flinch away but stilled the motion.

"Sensei… was this what it was like for you?"

The elder ninja shook his head, completely serious for once. "No. Mine was different. I'd made a stupid mistake and Obito paid for it. I can't imagine how you must be feeling."

"It will pass."

"No, it won't. Ninja don't forget their sorrows. They just learn to live with them. The pain will never entirely go away – but time will dull the edge."

After a moment, Sasuke stepped away again, face composed. "I'd like to visit the Naka Shrine. And then I think I might ask for Sakura's services. If I am to take Itachi's eyes, at least when he is cremated he can have mine."

"You want to do it now?"

"Soon, at any rate. Let him go to the fire as he was in life." Sasuke's voice caught slightly. "And this will prevent anyone… trying to make use of the body."

"I understand. After your Chunin exams, that has become a valid worry."

"It also brings up the spectre of having to fight some Akatsuki members again. It's a pity we didn't destroy Sasori's body, since we didn't know where it was. Hidan and Kakuzu aren't coming back though."

* * *

Sasuke stood before the tablet. _Sharingan._ As normal, it explained the powers of the eye, and hinted at the next.

With an effort of will, he concentrated on the moment he had killed Itachi. His eyes twitched, and he memorized the movement even as the tablet unravelled a little more.

"Limited free… oh, this is the bit about attaining the Eternal. Not relevant. Ah, here we go."

He looked closer. There were three passages of dozens that could be read.

'The ultimate warrior is he of the name _Tadakatsu_, right eyed, who emerges from one hundred battlefields uninjured.' Interesting.

'Let _Masamune_, the left eyed dragon of lightning, wield his blades with six thoughts of one mind.' Lightning? Amaterasu was fire. This could be very useful.

'_Mitsunari_ strikes with the speed of his thought, with two eyes clear to see.' That one was more cryptic than the other two. Unless perhaps… Uchiha Sharingan enhanced the speeds of their minds, but not their bodies. If this turned out to increase the speed of his body by that same factor, he was going to win a lot of fights.

Then he winced. As soon as he got used to having much less planning time for each movement, of course.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Sakura asked, running a final pass of healing chakra over Sasuke's face.

"Yes. The pain has gone. Even the slight sting of my Mangekyo has faded, and it appears that transferring Itachi's eyes to my own has healed their damage."

"That's good to know." Sakura shuddered at the memory of Itachi's eyes. When their Sharingan had deactivated in death, they had been so clouded she hadn't been able to believe it.

She remembered now, what Sasuke had said. "That's my brother. Nobody else could fight that well while hardly able to even see."

Shaking it off, she helped him up. "Are you going to return to the tablet to see what else it says?"

"In a while. For now, I think I will simply… meditate. Contemplate Itachi's life."

She nodded wordlessly, and left the room – one of the downstairs rooms in Sasuke's house in the Uchiha district.

* * *

"And so," the Third Hokage concluded, "Ended the life of Uchiha Itachi. A man who was reviled as a traitor for almost half his life, and among the most tragic – and loyal – shinobi I have ever had the privelige and pain of watching as he grew. And now, at a request from the last member of his clan, to which I have chosen to accede, he will be treated not as the missing ninja he counterfeited – but as the loyal Shinobi he always was."

The crowd were silent. Itachi's funeral was a public event, to get the message out about the true cause of the Uchiha Massacare – and, more importantly in a way, restrict "Tobi's" manoeuvring room. If everyone knew he was a murderous, duplicitous individual, his ability to convince others would be limited.

"The life of a Ninja is often filled with pain and loss. But it is a strong man indeed who can face that pain and still do good."

The Hokage bowed his head for a moment, then looked back up again.

"That concludes what I have to say. Thank you all for listening."

* * *

Naruto entered the training ground to see Sasuke with a kunai poised over his hand.

"Don't, Sasuke! You've got so much to look forward to!"

The Uchiha gave Naruto a deadpan look, one of his eyes lit. "I'm not about to commit suicide, ninwit. I'm testing one of my Mangekyo powers. Watch."

He brought the kunai down with a whipcord motion, and it bounced off his hand.

"Wh-that's actually kind of cool." Naruto said, looking closely at the skin – it wasn't even marked. "What power is that?"

"Tadakatsu. I think it confers invulnerability."

"Cool. Can I try something?"

Sasuke watched apprehensively as Naruto spun up a Rasengan. "Er, wait, what are you-"

"Don't worry. Just push the tip of a thumb against it or something with the jutsu up."

He complied. Applying gentle pressure caused the Rasengan to indent, then burst.

"Wow. That looks like the space-time of your body is displaced from the real world slightly. Did you feel anything?"

"Yes. Same as with the kunai, ghost pain." Sasuke blinked, and when his eye opened again it was black. "But that's a really chakra intensive power. Same order as sustaining a Chidori while discharging it into something. I think I'll have to pulse it as attacks hit."

"Still a useful safety net."

"Yes." Then Sasuke looked at Naruto. "Did you say something about space time?"

"Yeah. I've been studying up on it since I think it was how my dad was so fast – he accelerated his nervous system relative to the rest of his body. I want to know how he did things, even if I can't replicate them easily."

Naruto snapped his fingers. "What about the other two?"

"I've already tried Mitsunari. It's very strange, like I'm not using the Sharingan but everyone else is slowed down. The last one is Masamune." Sasuke drew the Raijin. "I'll see what happens, I think I have enough chakra."

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. His left eye flashed with the combined pattern of his and Itachi's Mangekyo. And the Raijin lit, then its' glow changed to a deep, azure blue.

The eye widened. "So that's how it works…"

"What?"

"The power, Masamune, it gives me a deeper understanding of… _lightning."_

That last word was more sung than spoken. It was unmistakeably Celestial.

Sasuke took a coin from his pocket and flipped it into the air. As it came down, he willed the blue lightning to envelop it, and…

BANG!

A tree on the other side of the training ground fell over.

The Uchiha developed a grin. "Oh, yes. This I very much like."

Naruto looked back and forth between sword and tree. "What was that?"

"Railgun justu. It uses electric current and magnetism to create movement."

* * *

"Ah, Naruto. I have a mission for you." Sarutobi handed over a scroll.

"Uhh… capture of a missing nin? Neat. Akatsuki?"

"No, he's not to our knowledge a minor Akatsuki member."

"Okay. Then why us? Who asked for this?"

By way of understanding, the Third pushed an opened letter across his desk. It was marked with the date, and 'do not open until'. In the Third's handwriting.

"Until now, I did not know the origin of this letter. I have created a duplicate of it along with a second letter. You are to give them both to the other person you meet on this mission. There is time-inconstancy involved."

"Time travel? Future or… no, it must be looping around to our past if you want me to deliver a letter you've already received."

"Correct. Part of the letter mentions that a memory jutsu will be performed on those in the past, wiping their memories of the events so as to prevent the possibility of damage."

"Isn't that an information paradox?"

Sarutobi blinked. "How do you know that term?"

"Sakura rants about the Sharingan about once a month. And I've been reading up on time-space techniques since they seem to be what ninja like dad and Tobi use all the time."

"How prudent. But I digress. You must take your team and head to Rōran in the land of Wind. Mukade plans on using it to travel to the past." Sarutobi sighed. "He's going to succeed, of course, but try to make sure his success is as terminal to him as possible."

* * *

"Guys? This is getting strange."

Sasuke looked over to Sakura. "Elaborate."

"Whenever I switch my True Sight on, I can see these vast glowing streams of chakra under the ground. They seem to meet somewhere pretty much where we're going. I think they're ley lines or something."

"Wouldn't surprise me." Naruto muttered.

"What, is this the crazy luck theory again?"

"No. If there's a big city in the desert, either it's there for defensive purposes like Suna or it's there because something important is there."

The others blinked. "That actually makes sense…"

"Of course, it could be that the important thing is a trade route or something. From how the place is a ruin you'd think it was something that doesn't apply anymore."

"Yeah, it's kind of a recent ruin, isn't it? Less than twenty years ago."

* * *

The team sped into the central structure, catching up with Mukade just as he reached his goal.

Sasuke launched a brace of kunai, which the elderly ninja caught with chakra strings. "You can't stop me! I will rule the world!"

He ducked as a railgun-launched coin nearly took his torso out, and unsealed half a dozen large puppets to run interference as he began working on the seal to the Dragon Lines node under Rōran.

"Ooh, interesting." Naruto muttered, Wind Rasengan carving a puppet into an amusing shape. "Looks like that's one of Dad's special kunai there. Oh, by the way, Sasuke, don't blast his head off until he succeeds with this bit."

Three more hypersonic coins blew craters around Mukade. "I already knew that, Naruto, before I shot the first one I checked – my Sharingan pretty much showed the world going nuts if I connected."

"Yeah, time's kind of mutable, but not that much. Oh, do you think it might be easier to use kunai or shuriken with that railgun thing? Just, it's probably getting kind of expensive."

The puppet Naruto had been working on finally exploded as a cache of explosive tags chain-detonated.

"Damn. Now I have to start over."

"At last!" Mukade said. "Peacock Wisdom Queen!"

"Peacock what?" Naruto replied. "As technique names go, that's kind of-"

There was a blast of broken time, and the team vanished.

* * *

Sai blinked, and looked down. "Oh, that is a pity. It looks like I will not get to see what Danzo looked like when he was younger." Shrugging, he turned back to the crow who had been addressing him. "You were saying?"

* * *

Mukade laughed in triumph. "Finally! Now I will-"

Five lines of plasma connected with him at once, and he exploded violently.

Sasuke lowered a hand sheathed in crackling blue lightning, and blinked away his Mangekyo. "Okay, we're in the past. Now what?"

"Now… we've got to find dad and his team." Naruto said, thinking. "And I think there'll be young Kakashi on it, as well as a couple of older ninja."

"So, how do you plan on finding them?" Sakura asked.

"I think we can just wait here, actually. I mean, there's no Hiraishin kunai in the source yet, so he has to have come in here to seal it."

"But if it was sealed in the future, but it's not sealed now… wait, where did the him in the future come from? If he jumped back into his old body, and Sasuke just blew it up?"

"This whole time thing makes my head hurt..."

* * *

Minato Namikaze and his team stormed into the chamber under Rōran.

"Mukade! You will not… er, where is he?" Minato stumbled over his planned speech as he met three unfamiliar figures, two of them looking familiar – in different ways.

"Ah, Minato." Naruto said casually, concentrating hard on keeping his expression steady. "This is to go in the Third Hokage's files, don't worry, it's from him. Time travel. And do you know any short term memory erasal techniques?"

"Er, yes?"

"Good." Naruto let his expression go. "Hi, Dad."

* * *

"Just… wow." Minato said, finally. "This is so strange to hear. I mean, to know that my son – _my son_ – will be, well, you. You're everything I could hope for, but at the same time I half-want to change who I'm going out with since Kushina clearly left her mark on your genetics."

Naruto laughed. "Ah, don't worry. I think it's worked out fairly well. Oh, that reminds me." He grabbed a scroll and wrote on it quickly.

Minato looked over. "What are you doing?"

"Well, I think it'd be a good idea to at least hint towards something. Basically, you need to find out how to break a contract connection by attacking the summoner."

"Er, okay. What will that do?"

"Ultimately, probably save the world. But that's true of a lot of things." Naurto finished writing the cryptic note, and handed it to his father. Then he looked behind him. "Okay, Sakura wants to talk to you apparently."

"Thanks, Naruto!" Sakura said happily. "So how did you find out your True Name?"

Minato blinked. "You know about that?"

Sakura replied by holding up the Hiraishin kunai Naruto had given her months before. "I deciphered the seals on this with my celestial heritage. It only works for those with a true name of _Arashi_," The syllables hung in the air like music, "But I think that if you found a number of people who each had part of that true name in their conceptual structure, they might be able to do it collaboratively."

"I hadn't thought of that, actually." Minato said. "But it sounds like a good idea to look into. Why do you ask?"

"I'm developing my Soul Aria, you see, and it's all in Celestial. I'm wondering if you did it the same way."

"No, sorry." Minato shrugged. "Just lots and lots of seal-work, until I unravelled the nature of my own being and found the root seal of the entire meta-array."

For a moment, Sakura just gaped. "That's the most incredibly hard thing I've ever heard of. Are you sure you don't speak Celestial? Because it's starting to sound like it."

"Nope." Minato confirmed. "I'm just that interested in sealing."

"You're telling me you achieved Nirvana in your teenage years with a brush and paper?" She shook her head. "That's just… astonishing. No wonder you're the Fourth."

"I'm what?"

"Oops, spoilers." Sakura muttered. "Forget that bit."

* * *

"So you're an Uchiha?" Kakashi asked, neutrally.

"I am." Sasuke replied. "And there's a special power the Sharingan has if you say the word 'Kamui'. Try it."

Kakashi did so, and promptly collapsed.

"Hey, Sasuke, that was kind of cruel." Naruto said.

"It's the last time I'll ever get him with it. And he won't remember, anyway."

* * *

Minato stabbed one of his special kunai into the dragon line node. "Right, I make it about thirty seconds before the time-distortion fades. And I think space-time should more or less heal up around this now – I've set a timed seal on the dragon lines so they'll pull you back in time to attack the idiot at the appropriate time, and an illusion seal for the fake Mukade."

The three future ninja nodded, then vanished. Minato promptly fired off a short-term amnesia jutsu.

"What happened to Mukade?" Choza asked, frowning.

"I believe that the evidence suggests that our target attempted to utilize the Dragon Lines, and exploded." Shibi droned.

* * *

"Well, that was fun." Naruto commented. "Nice to have a chat with Dad again."

Sai flew down to meet them. "I see you are back. I am glad to report that I now have a summoning contract, and as such am not the odd one out."

"Not for that reason, anyway…" Sakura muttered. "Who do you have, then?"

A large crow alighted next to him, and spun a small metal tube about one foot. "The Red Bell has tolled. The Saica are ready."

"You're my brother's old summons, aren't you?" Sasuke asked, recognizing them.

"That we are."

"They see themselves as one, individually and collectively." Sai mentioned. "Since this is not out of accordance with my personal philosophy, the correlation is clear."

* * *

"Ah, good to see you're back." Sarutobi said. "Anything break the timeline?"

"Turns out that the Mukade that we were sent after was an illusion to give us a reason to go back in the first place. Apart from that, everything's more or less in one piece."

"Time travel is one of the mysteries of the universe, it seems. Though your father was certainly starting to unravel it."

Naruto shrugged. "It doesn't have to make sense, we're ninja. We walk on water because it's easier than learning to swim."

"Indeed, indeed. Well, it would seem nothing urgent presents itself for now."

Danzo made a frantic gesture, and tossed a report over to the Hokage. Behind him, a ninja left through the window.

"And it seems I was mistaken. There's a mission for you in Water country, near the last sighting of the Six-tails container. Try and check in on him if you have the chance."

"Got it!"

* * *

"Worst evil plan ever." Naruto muttered.

"He _did_ nearly manage to make an explosion the size of an entire village," Sakura pointed out. "And a nature chakra convertor is nothing to sneeze at."

"No, it's not that. He had to be at the centre of the explosion to use the technique. I mean, what?"

"It is a good thing that Utakata was there." Sai commented lightly. "I cannot imagine things going so smoothly without his unique and highly useful bubble jutsu."

"Or the gigantic slug in his gut." Naruto muttered. "Shapeshifting is cool and all, but a whole unique element? That'd be nice as well."

"Oh, quit bellyaching, Naruto!" Sakura poked him. "You've got about eight times as much chakra on call as him!"

"Fair point."

Sasuke had been gradually frowning, staring into the distance. "Sai, Naruto, Sakura. Who in Konoha has a summon of a gigantic bird with the Rinnegan?"

"Uhhh… I don't know. Is the punchline Katsuyu?"

Sakura's head whipped across to look at Naruto. "Pardon?"

"Well, Tsunade is kind of big, in more than one way – big name, that sort of thing. And she's a Senju, which is part of the bloodline associated with the Rinnegan. So since Katsuyu can-"

An explosion reached their ears. Sasuke's hand sparked, and the Raijin appeared in it. "Konoha is under attack!"

"Yeah, that does make more sense. We shouldn't have spent that week on the way back practicing massive impact techniques." Naruto mused, hands making seals to summon Ichimaru. "Hi. Mind taking a look around Konoha to get some intel?"

The silvery fox's form blurred for a moment. "Done. Several attackers, one of them's summoning all kinds of crazy monsters, they're trying to find out where you are."

Sai smiled blandly. "That is most impressive. You were not gone for nearly long enough to overhear conversations, so you must have inferred this all from the still images."

"Nah, I bounced around and picked up the outgoing wavefronts of a few conversations. Pretty easy trick."

"Yeah, for someone who sees the sound barrier as something to dodge on the way past it…" Sakura muttered. "Anything else?"

"They've all got unusual hair. Well," Ichimaru shrugged, a strange thing to see on a quadruped. "Unusual for humans. Several of them have orange."

"Pain." Naruto said, his eyes already slit yellow. "He's after Millie."

The team broke into a fast run, heading for Konoha.

"Plan?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto frowned. "First thing is, I'll get some clones up and evacuate the village. Pain is high S rank, Kakashi and the Sannin are the only ones with the firepower to match him apart from us – and for us it's only because we've been preparing specifically for the Akatsuki for months. The Old Man's good enough, but he's not nearly tough enough."

"Evacuate the village for fighting room, then." Sai said lightly. "I am less skilled than the rest of you. I will break off, launch harassment attacks, and contact Lord Danzo. I understand he has a most peculiar summon."

"Anything that might help." Naruto nodded. "Sakura, see if you can work out how he's doing everything."

Sasuke launched a shuriken railgun burst at a giant centipede that had reared too high, and as it dispersed Naruto multiplied himself into thousands and sent them to evacuate Konoha.

* * *

Sakura's eyes darted from place to place. There was something strange going on…

She launched off a bolt of wind-boosted flame at a set of origami constructs as they approached, and frowned. "Konan, right?"

"Indeed." Strips of paper flew together to create the kunoichi's face. "I am impressed. Not many would recognize my unique ninjutsu."

"Which is… a clone made of paper, transformed and cloned again. A swarm transformation? I didn't know those were possible for mortals, the sheer information overload…" Sakura then grinned. "Bet it helps your complexion, though. Though I see your skin is a bit papery."

"Enough." Konan said blandly. "You are not our objective. Leave and survive."

"No chance!" Sakura replied, creating a flame Rasengan.

A storage scroll in paper flew at her, releasing a torrent of water.

With a thought, she switched aspects and drew the water into a Big Ball water rasengan, which obliterated much of Konan's nearby paper.

Another face formed further away. "How did you do that? Your element went from Fire to Water. That is not possible."

"_I am the legacy of the gods._

_Insight is my way,_

_And Mystery is my path._

_I have seen and understood all things._

_Been both fire and water,_

_Leapt from earth to air,_

_Danced at…"_ Sakura frowned, and her voice lost its' strange quality as she switched out of Celestial. "Damn, nearly got it there. Anyway, Naruto is one of my friends so you can just go and crumple."

Konan began to speak again, but fire enveloped her proxy head and destroyed it. Sakura wrapped herself in a wind-fire shroud and began hunting for more of the S-class missing ninja's paper.

* * *

Sasuke crashed into a building hard enough to go right through it. Yahiko's body turned away.

And a shower of chidori shuriken went right through him, puncturing holes and cutting through some of the bones.

Sasuke climbed back out of the rubble, wincing as his Mangekyo shifted back to the regular Sharingan again. Pulsing Tadakatsu had kept him alive, but it had been pretty brutal on his chakra supply.

A Naruto appeared next to him. "Village inside the walls is clear. Boss is using the big fox summons to wear down Pain's ones."

"Understood." Sasuke replied, and dodged a Fire technique from the Pain he had been facing. With a frown, he triggered his Mangekyo again. "Amaterasu!"

The fire rolled off a short-range shield. Deva path Pain flickered out of the way and launched a wide-area Water technique, then vanished in another flicker.

"Damn…"

A screech filled the air, and one of the gigantic summons – a hippo, by the looks of it – went flying into the air exploding and also on fire.

Sasuke exchanged a glance with the Naruto. "Rasenshuriken?"

"Yeah, and some Chunin tossed in a Fire technique as the attack hit. Nice one, whoever it was."

* * *

Kiba whooped. "Yes! I actually did something!"

Akamaru rolled his eyes and barked.

* * *

"Look, the boss is about to go Sage again, so I'm about to disappear to let him hold a recharge." The clone said.

"Understood." Sasuke spun the Raijin, then made a decision and summoned Hayabusa. "I'm going to do top cover with Sai."

Both of them glanced up as the murder of crows overhead, occasionally mobbing and destroying paper clones. Naruto's clone nodded. "If you get a railgun shot, just do it. No messing around with this guy. And keep track of everything – you're the best person for that. I don't want to be surprised if a _third_ Akatsuki member is here."

The clone finally vanished, and two seconds later a _massive_ explosion sounded from near the centre of Konoha.

Sasuke winced. "Ouch. Hopefully he won't have to pay the repair bills."

* * *

Naruto pulsed a Big Ball rasengan in one hand to tear the projectiles from the Asura path apart, and two of his clones tossed in a Rasenshuriken to try and kill the close-assault specialist path. Another jumped in the way and absorbed the attack, and then did the same to a pair of Wind Rasengan.

"Damn, that's annoying. A Chakra drainer with enough capacity to keep up with me...why do I always run into them?" he muttered, ducking below a credible Dynamic Entry from the Human path.

The air pulsed, and suddenly gravity multiplied a hundredfold. Noh, Jo and Ha dispelled themselves before they were crushed, and Naruto himself collapsed to the floor, his Sage mode saving him.

A moment later, a _BOOM_ echoed over the village and the gravity field ceased. Naruto sprang back upright and ran a check – his clones were all gone, smashed by the field. That _did_ mean he was back at full Sage, but it was also a bit of a problem if Pain could do that at will.

A flaming ball of chakra four feet across destroyed one of the Paths, and all the summons vanished.

"Thanks, Sakura!"

She didn't reply. Fair enough, she was probably under some serious illusions if the Rinnegan hadn't managed to spot her.

Not for the first time, Naruto was grateful that his team regularly sparred against armies of his clones. The way these Pains were reacting was eerily similar to how his clones could share memories, and their familiarity with it gave him a little bit of an edge.

A rhino appeared in front of him, and promptly exploded again as railgun shots rained down.

Naruto blinked and summoned fifty clones. One of them headed off to find Sakura, and ask her what the hell was up with that. The remaining forty-nine and him began causing yet more devastation, using the theory that the Paths had to be hiding _somewhere_.

* * *

"Resurrection? You're kidding." Sakura said, eyes moving fast as she picked apart a web of genjutsu. Sasuke could just ignore it and Naruto was operating off Sage chakra at the moment, but she could see what there was and what it had been built to cover.

Speaking of… she threw three flash tagged kunai into the air, and the Path at the centre of the triangle thus formed took a Kirin to the head. By the looks of it, that was the one throwing the gravity attacks.

With his… incapacitation? The illusion net stopped moving as dynamically as it had before, and Sai showed his appreciation with an ink dragon that censored the seals on some of Konan's paper.

Sakura melted away again, pausing only to scan the area once more with true sight.

Ah, that was it.

* * *

Naruto's hand sprouted Wind blades and a summon fell apart. His Sage mode began to run out of time, and he mentally shrugged before pulling on seven tails of chakra.

Pain watched dispassionately as Naruto's chakra cloak formed. "Foolish of you. Akatsuki is experienced in defeating Jinchuuriki."

With a grinding roar, tails burst from the ground and wrapped around the Human path. Hefting him for a fraction of a second, they threw him high into the air.

Naruto grinned behind the red-orange youkai. Seven-tail clones were awesome!

* * *

"Huh." Sasuke said to himself, examining the flying Path through his Sharingan. "What trick does this one have?"

"I do not believe it has one." Sai said placidly, flying alongside. "This one was standing at the back of the line when the powers were handed out."

"Shall we kill it anyway?"

"I wish to take the honour." Sai gestured, and a pair of crows flew to match trajectories with the Path. A second later they dispersed, and the Human Path violently exploded.

"It would seem that the second rule of the Crow summons is to make things blow up." Sai mused.

* * *

Naruto's clones wove a web of tails around him, lashing into and blocking attacks. One of them was caught by the Naraka path and lost a tail before it got free, and Naruto checked his chakra levels again – he was burning through it fast.

Railgun fire smashed the Naraka Path for the third time. At least that one was vulnerable to physical attacks…

Then all the Paths Naruto could see seized up and fell over.

"Hey, Sasuke? Was that you?" He shouted, still maintaining a chakra cloak.

"No." Sasuke called down. "I think Sakura found something."

"Neat."

* * *

"That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard. And I'm on a team with Naruto." Sakura said flatly.

"It would bring an end to wars except the wars over the weapon itself." Nagato insisted from inside his sparking, dented control system.

"Sure, if everyone was perfectly rational. But if the weapon's use was too terrible to contemplate, then there'd be armies that attacked the bearer of the weapon because he'd never use it. And if he did, then that's another use of the weapon." Sakura snorted. "Not to mention how you're all taking your orders from someone who is either undead or an eldritch abomination based off the mind of the ten-tailed beast."

Nagato blinked. "Pardon?"

"Madara Uchiha died at the Valley of the End. We have his old summon contract to prove it – and somehow his name's both been removed via death and is still on it, we're still looking into that one. But anyway. You're essentially assuming that everyone else in Akatsuki is being perfectly tricked by you into doing what you want, except Tobi who doesn't have an agenda. Frankly from his public persona I'd willingly believe he wants to carve his face on the moon so he remembers what it looks like under the mask, but you've met his private self and you know he's not as silly as that makes him seem."

Naruto arrived through the wall. "Ow. Sorry, I thought that was wood but it was paper. Okay, that's Nagato, right? He reminds me of someone… got it."

"Do you mean the younger image of Nagato we saw in Jiraiya's historical flashback illusion?" Sakura asked, sceptically.

"No, I mean both of them remind me of Uzumaki clan members. You know, like mom and stuff."

Sakura looked over the incredibly emaciated ninja. "I'm not seeing it."

"Name one other person with red hair."

"Gaara?" She volunteered.

"Hm. Tricky, and a point well made. But I'm suspicious about him anyway. My point stands, though, that's a different shade of red."

"Tayuya?"

"The flute girl? I'm suspicious about her as well. Again, though, shades of red."

"As entertaining as this is," Nagato wheezed, "what's the point?"

"Oh, to the best of my knowledge your attack didn't actually kill anyone so I'm going for a redemption. I do it a lot. You know, since Tsunade Senju is part of our village we could probably heal that body trauma."

"I would never sink so low as to allow myself to associate with the Sannin who abandoned me."

"Well, apart from Orochimaru when he was part of Akatsuki." Sakura said casually.

Nagato and Konan exchanged glances.

"Right, that's me out of excuses." Nagato said. "Though I'm still not sure why they never checked on me."

"As far as Jiraiya was concerned, you'd probably died. I know it sounds cold blooded, but remember that your enemy was Hanzo the Salamander who was basically the most powerful ninja of the time. And by the time he got confirmation you were alive it was because you'd turned your resistance movement into a terrorist organization aiming to kill his godson."

"When it's put like that, I have to admit it makes sense." Nagato said. "All right, I suppose it's time to meet Jiraiya and Tsunade again."

* * *

"Well, Tsunade?" Sakura asked, watching the legendary medic scan Nagato.

"The good news is, none of the damage is permanent. The bad news is, I'm going to have to make you take three months of bed rest and another nine months of physiotherapy before you're allowed out of the hospital."

Nagato winced.

Konan raised a hand. "Would an origami exoskeleton allow him to move around for short periods of time?"

"Possibly. I'll need to test it first. Hey, Naruto! I need another expendable test dummy!"

"What, again?" Naruto called back. "I thought you did all the experiments last week!"

"That was last week! There's a new one!"

"Alright, hang on!"

Konan and Nagato both blinked. "Expendable test dummy?"

"Naruto regenerates. He's grow back an arm before."

"Oh. Okay." Nagato looked lost. "And I thought Akatsuki was a spectacular band of misfits."

Sakura shrugged. "I'm kind of desensitized by now."

Sai dropped something through the window.

"It looks like a get well card." Konan picked it up and opened it slowly. "Sorry for the war, that was a big mistake. Hope you're able to ninj again soon. Danzo."

Nagato took the card and put it on his bedside table. On seeing the confused looks of the others, he shrugged painfully. "At least he had the courtesy to apologise."

* * *

AN: Sorry this took so long.

Yes, Sai is the crow summoner. His attitude fits.

Sasuke's Mangekyo Powers:

Tadakatsu

Named for Tadakatsu Honda, a samurai who was in over 100 battles in the Sengoku era and was never even wounded. His Sengoku Basara version is a gundam, as wacky as that sounds, and has one normal eye and one cybernetic eye.

The power shifts Sasuke slightly out of phase with the physical world. He can still interact with it, but his body is effectively invulnerable. The chakra cost is ludicrously high.

Masamune

Named for Masamune Date, the lord of the Date clan and another great samurai from the Sengoku era. He lost one eye as a child, and lived his whole life with just the other one. His Sengoku Basara version has electrokinesis.

The power is essentially to "Lightning" what Amaterasu is to "Fire" - a more pure version.

Mitsunari

Named for Mitsunari Ishida, yet another samurai from the Sengoku. His Sengoku Basara version is utterly obsessed with vengeance, and is a master of iado - the art of striking and then sheathing the sword between strikes.

This power accelerates Sasuke's personal time space to the same degree the conventional Sharingan accelerates his mind, superseding that ability. The drawback of this is that, like most Uchiha, Sasuke has used the Sharingan in most high-level fights, leading to him being used to having lots of time to think about his actions compared to other ninja.

Sasuke also has the three powers Itachi possessed, though his mastery of those is lesser since they are "tailored to" his brother, rather than to him.


	6. Chapter 6

"Troubling." Sarutobi muttered. "That makes eight." He passed the report to Danzo.

"That _is_ troubling. I wonder how they managed to defeat the Eight Tails container. In any case, one assumes that means we are next." Danzo raised an eyebrow. "In fact, by the dates on this report he was attacked at the same time as Konoha."

"We must assume that they will try again." Sarutobi tapped his chin. "Akatsuki is now down to… four members?"

"Kisame, Tobi, Deidara and Zetsu, yes." Danzo frowned. "I worry, however, that they will find a replacement for Itachi. Orochimaru need no longer fear Itachi's eye, for example."

"True." The Hokage sighed heavily. "I wish Mitarashi was of a higher rank. She's edging into A, but nowhere near the point I could send her against her old mentor – even with the advantage her summons give her."

"It would seem our best bet, then, is the remarkable Team Seven." Danzo looked sidelong at the crystal ball. "Shall we check on them again?"

"Oh, why not." Sarutobi swept the cloth cover off, and both elderly ninja began watching their favourite show… er, monitoring a valuable asset.

* * *

"And, finally, test 32!" Naruto shouted, holding a keening Rasenshuriken in the palm of his hand.

Sasuke looked from side to side. "Suddenly I feel a lot more apprehensive about this."

"Oh, you'll be fine." Naruto ran forward, spun his arm around and released the Sage-enhanced Rasenshuriken.

Sasuke disappeared inside a threshing wall of wind chakra.

* * *

"Well?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke shrugged. "The clone hasn't dispelled yet. It would seem that Tadakatsu really does render even a shadow clone invulnerable. Convenient."

Naruto landed next to them. "I think that's it for today. Anything I forgot?"

"Can't think of anything." Sakura said. "Sasuke?"

Sasuke was staring fixedly into the distance. "Guys, incoming."

Sakura and Naruto looked. "I can't see anything."

"Neither can I." Sakura said, before frowning. "Hmmm…" Her hands wove a pair of seals, and the air rippled in front of her. "There we go."

Naruto looked over, interested. "What's that? Wind technique?"

"Yeah, it lenses light so I can see further. Sorry, I think it's beyond your control levels… anyway, that's Deidara on a bird. Still a couple of miles out."

"Any sign of Tobi, Kisame or Zetsu?"

"No, but there wouldn't be. Hey, Sai?" The ex-Root nin materialized next to Sakura. "Mind checking with the people maintaining the barrier jutsu? Tell them to be especially alert."

"I understand." Sai shot off a-crowback.

"Where was he?" Sasuke asked, thrown. "I didn't notice him."

"Naruto's familiar-spirit thing-"

"Kudagitsune." Kuda interrupted.

"Thanks. Anyway, that inspired him, and we've been developing things like living person storage seals and perceptual seals connected to the internal seal space. Basically, he can store himself in a seal array attached to a flat surface or something."

"Neat."

"Uh… guys?" Naruto asked. "What's our engagement plan with Deidara?"

Sasuke drew the Raijin. "Since I can shut down his attacks, second-strike. Wait for him to attack, then capitalize on the moment of distraction."

Naruto nodded, and multiplied himself to begin building a Rasenshuriken. Sakura vanished in a swirl of water.

After several seconds, her voice came out of thin air. "We're in range by now, surely?"

"He blew Naruto's arm off at half again that range last time." Sasuke confirmed. "I don't know _why_ he hasn't done anything yet."

"Clone going to blow us up?" Naruto asked, holding his Rasenshuriken at the pre-injection stage so they could still talk.

"Hmmm… nope." The invisible Sakura checked. "That's the real him, and he's not moulding any chakra."

Deidara began waving what looked like a handkerchief.

"Is that supposed to be a parley flag?" Sasuke asked.

"Looks like." Naruto dismissed his Rasenshuriken. "Keep an eye on him, Sasuke, and be ready to blast him if you get a prediction that he's going to turn hostile."

"What are you doing, Naruto?" Sakura asked.

"It's worked on other Akatsuki members before now. I'm going to talk to him."

* * *

"Uh, hi… Naruto, right? The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, yeah?"

Naruto nodded. "And you must be Deidara."

"Heh, yeah. Uh, no hard feelings, yeah? For blowing your arm off a month or two ago?"

Naruto showed his intact arms. "No arm, no foul."

"Ouch, yeah." Deidara winced. "Okay, look. We – Tobi and Kisame and me, yeah? We went and beat up the eight-tails Jinchuuriki, practically levelled Unraikyo… which was fun, yeah." The S-class missing nin grinned with the memory. "And at the end of it, we caught him and took him back to extract. And turned out, all there was was a tentacle."

"Huh." Naruto said. "Messing with transformation? Kind of neat."

"It was cool, yeah, but apparently it wasn't as much of a problem as it sounded." Deidara shrugged. "I don't know how it works, I'm just in it for the explosions."

"Yeah?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah. But anyway, then Orochimaru turns up, and it turns out what their whole plan is. The real one, yeah?"

"They have an actual plan?" the Jinchuuriki said, surprised. "I thought they'd come up with the whole plan while drunk."

"And I could have respected that, yeah!" Deidara said passionately. "But no, they came up with this _ages_ ago. Whole long plan, right from when one of them tried to set the Kyuubi on Konoha up to today. And you're not going to believe what their goal is."

"They actually told you?"

"Hell yeah, yeah! They thought it'd make us go along with it. Seems like Kisame already knew, and Orochimaru liked the sound of it, yeah, but I wanted OUT."

"Wait." Naruto frowned. "There's two things here, and I don't want to forget either of them. First, if Orochimaru and Kisame were the ones being told, who was 'they'? Tobi?"

"Him and Zetsu." Deidara nodded, gloomily. "I don't know what's up with the guy. He seemed so fun and jokey when we were out on missions, yeah."

Naruto shrugged. "What about the second thing? What _was_ the plan?"

"Hypnotize everyone in the world using the moon so they all think they're having a perfect life." Deidara said, deadpan.

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, that makes so little sense that I can't even see where they're coming from in the first place."

"It gets better, yeah?" Deidara said. "Apparently all they need now is a bit of the nine tails. They don't need all of all the tailed beasts."

Naruto raised his thumb to his mouth, then paused. "Hey, Sasuke! You still watching this?"

"Yes." Sasuke replied from the middle distance.

"Good! Hey, Deidara, please repeat this sentence: I am no longer affiliated with Akatsuki and want to stop them."

"I'm no longer part of Akatsuki, yeah?" Deidara more-or-less repeated. "And I'm completely behind stopping them. That do?"

Naruto completed the summoning. "Ichimaru, go check on Sora. What's the verdict, Sasuke?"

Sasuke flickered beside Naruto. "He was telling the truth."

"You know, that eye of yours is kind of handy." Naruto said. "Did you ever notice that?"

"All the time, Naruto. All the time. Though I could do without having every last moment of that conversation memorized forever. I hope I haven't copied his speech tic…"

"I don't have a speech tic, yeah!" Deidara said indignantly.

"Don't worry." Naruto said, patting him on the shoulder. "The first step is admitting you have a problem. I used to end many of my sentences with the same thing as well, but I got therapy for it." Suddenly, Naruto was struck by something. "Actually, that particular tic was genetic – though not from the same side as the hair. Otherwise I would have almost thought we were related."

"Heh, yeah. No, some clans from Iwa do have relatives in Konoha, yeah? In my case, I think mine is a distant branch of the Yamanaka, yeah?"

"Huh. Neat. Well, that's going to help."

"How?"

"First stop is the T&I department." Naruto raised his hands placatingly. "I know, I know, but I think they'll bring the Yamanaka head back in to look you over since you're such an important guy, and you can ask about staying over there for a bit."

"You think they'll let me, yeah?"

Sakura appeared to condense out of the air. "You're a former antagonist who had a talk with Naruto. That's a form N-21: Naruto Did It Again." She rubbed her chin as she fell into step. "Thus far there's been, let's see… the Kyuubi herself, sort of… Gaara of the Sand and Shukaku… Itachi, Konan, Nagato-"

"Itachi?" Deidara interrupted. "When did that happen? And who's Nagato?"

"He told us what he knew about Akatsuki's plans within two minutes of first seeing Naruto." Sakura said. "Granted, he was infiltrating Akatsuki all along, but… anyway, Nagato is the former 'Leader' of Akatsuki. The one with the six puppet bodies and piercings."

"That's really strange, yeah." Deidara looked sidelong at the other blonde. "What is it with you, kid, yeah?"

"Not like I know." Naruto shrugged. "Seems to work, though."

Ichimaru reappeared. "He's fine, but the monastry has decided to fort up."

"Probably for the best if they do."

* * *

"So, the situation hasn't actually changed much." Sasuke said, as they waited for Inoichi to show up. "It's just that we know now that Orochimaru is back, and Deidara is no longer part of the organization."

"Soon we could probably maange a quorum of members and take the name Akatsuki from them." Sakura joked.

"Could be fun, yeah." Deidara chuckled. "Hey, that reminds me. What are you guys' opinions on explosions, yeah?"

Team Seven looked from one to another awkwardly. Naruto spoke first. "When you actually ask like that, and we think about it… we cause an amazing number of them."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Basically, I'm a Jinchuuriki who can do the Bijuu Ball; Sakura has custom explosive tags and can do fire-wind combos all the time; Sasuke can shoot shuriken so fast they blow holes in rock, and Sai's summons specialize in explosives of one kind or another."

"Specialize?"

Sai answered. "The Crows have invented a way to make explosions happen inside a tube. This propels something forward very fast. They have also developed a thing called a firework."

"Sounds kind of cool, yeah. I'd like to see that, yeah."

"You probably would, wouldn't you…" Sakura said lightly. "Oh, looks like they're ready for us."

* * *

"Well?" Sarutobi asked.

"He's telling the truth, and seems inclined to throw his lot in with us for now." Inoichi confirmed. "Though there's one thing he missed - I'm not surprised, people remember more than they consciously notice. Orochimaru was performing the Impure World Resurrection as Deidara left."

"That can't be good." The Third sighed. "Well, we'll have to remain on medium alert. As of now, all ninja who are not attached to genin teams are on watch on/watch off. Genin teams are three-shift."

"Understood." Inoichi said, nodding. "I'll take Deidara to our spare apartment, and then head down to the sensory room to monitor the area."

"Thank you, Inoichi." Sarutobi said. "I am grateful for your help. I will be in my office, ready for whatever I might need to do. Second in command is Tsunade, should the worst happen."

* * *

Naruto rolled out of bed, up before the alarm. "Heh, looks like last night's training didn't tire me out as much as normal."

Kuda chuckled sleepily. "Probably because you actually ran out of ideas."

"Yeah, but I've got more now. Right, let's see… five cups of Ramen should do for breakfast. Two minutes for the food, and I can spend that getting changed. I need to see if that demonic sage mode is a good idea!"

"Don't forget you're on patrol duty after ten."

"Yeah, thanks." Naruto hummed. Making five hundred clones to cover his patrol pattern would work, and all it would mean was that he couldn't practice Sage Mode while they were out. "Okay, and then there's the other thing – the throwable non-Sage Rasenshuriken."

"Sounds like a full day."

"Yeah! I feel good about this one." Naruto grinned. He kind of did have an awesome life.

For starters, explosions got evaluated as training achievements…

* * *

Sasuke stepped out of the door, mind whirring with possible new ideas. Perhaps he could try summoning a Thunder bird, and trying to merge his electrical element with that of the summon.

Equations drifted in the back of his mind, more felt than consciously calculated. A proper use of the Raijin would allow for his mount to draw on the power, and himself as well, and if they fired out blasts of lightning with opposed polarity spaced apart then they could potentially cause equalization at the target and cause vast transient currents.

For that matter, if he understood the latest book he'd read (and he did) then matter itself was thought to be made up largely of electrical charges. Playing around with them could prove to be very useful… and, of course, dangerous.

That was how things worked, though, in the ninja world. At least there were shadow clones to experiment with.

* * *

Sakura wove a web of chakra into her hair, and smiled triumphantly when it took without a fuss. Finally.

This was a neat little contingent water jutsu, designed to react only when there was a hostile ninja taking hold of her hair. It transferred the stored water into the ninja's hands, which ought to be… messy, true, but also stop them grabbing her hair.

Now she could feel she had a _real_ justification for her long hair. Jiraiya kept weaselling out of teaching her Needle Jizo, so this was an acceptable substitute.

"Hey, Sakura."

She looked up. Looked like Sasuke was second to the training grounds today.

"Oh, what is it?"

"Just…" Sasuke looked embarrassed. "If someone had told me I'd be saying this three years ago, I'd never have believed them… want to go out tonight, Sakura?"

Sakura felt like she'd just been hit with a mild Lightning technique. "Uh… sure!" She rallied as fast as she could. "Thanks, I mean, I'd love to. I just never asked because, well… I thought it'd be too much like I was before I became a ninja."

"I respect you enough as a ninja now, Sakura." Sasuke said. "Just don't mention this to Ino, okay?"

"I'd never use it to get a cheap shot on her." Sakura said firmly. "I learned my lesson over _that._"

"Good."

They stood awkwardly for another few seconds.

"So!" Sakura said, brightly. "I just remembered what I was going to ask. When you use your Masamune power, you have a true understanding of Lightning, right?"

"Yeah."

"What's the Celestial word for it?"

"Hang on a second, and I'll see if I can remember it…" Sasuke blinked, and when his eyes opened they were the red swirl of his Eternal Mangekyo. "Masamune is the left eyed dragon of… _Lightning._"

Sakura heard the word, and felt it disassemble into its' component concepts in her mind. "Oh, wow. That's what I was missing – I knew there were two polarities, and that there was a difference between one which is the presence of electrons and another that's the absence, but I didn't know the cores of atoms were also the absence-type of electricity! Thanks, Sasuke, that's a great help. I'll see what I can do with it."

"No problem." Sasuke nodded, then walked over to a free space and began running through kata.

* * *

"Good…" Naruto said to himself. "I'm first."

Taking a deep breath, he sat down and formed a shadow clone. The clone began to gather Sage energy, reaching out to the natural world.

"Huh…" the clone said after a second, before Naruto could really start drawing on Millie. "This feels kind of strange. Weaker than normal."

"The natural energy?" Naruto checked. "Strange. It still there?"

"Yeah, I think I can get enough."

"Right, go for it. Let me know when you're ready."

The clone went back to meditating, and Naruto reached within himself.

_Okay, Millie._ He thought, casting it into his own mind in the way that the Kyuubi would hear. _You're going to have to be calm for this one._

**_What, really? Is it required, or just a strong suggestion?_**

_Required, I think._ Naruto thought. _If it turns out it is and I assume it's not, then we could be in real trouble._

**_Yeah, I get it. Meanie. Oh well, I can do Zen._**

Naruto blinked. _YOU can do zen?_

**_Ozy showed me how. I think he was impressed with how quickly I got it. Only took a decade._**

The Jinchuuriki chuckled. _That I can believe. Okay, we'll start with something fairly simple._

He blinked, as his mindscape shook with a rumbling purring.

_…did you just fall asleep?_

**_Yep!_** Millie's head popped up just long enough to give that bright, clear answer, then went back on her paws and she went back to snoring.

Naruto shrugged. _…I'll take it._

Coming out of the meditative state, he slowly pulled on Millie's chakra to avoid disturbing her. After a minute or so, he judged he had about equal to his normal Sage power levels in red chakra.

The clone threw a thumbs-up. "Ready!"

"Good. Dispel."

The clone popped-

* * *

Sasuke spun the Raijin. He could feel the sword's lightning dancing up and down the semi-real blade, and the presence of electrons. But he couldn't work out how to make the absence occur.

Was it related to what he did in a Kirin? Then, he blasted lightning up into the sky to ionize a particular path…

Ionization. That was it. Everything was normally a balance, and normal Lightning element chakra was the addition of electrons. But there should be an absence as well.

Focusing hard, he tried to pull the Lightning chakra out of the Raijin faster than it could be generated.

It made no difference to the charge levels.

Then, he realized. The blade core was absent-electrons. That was how it worked. So all he would need to do to make a weapon that made what it cut actually explode would be to change how it was set. Maybe make the electrons it generated from nature chakra flow into him, and use the balance to make the blade stronger.

But then, he'd need to isolate it as well.

This would be so much easier if he spent a moment to be sure he had the structure right.

His left eye spun into the Mangekyo-

* * *

_"Lightning…"_ Sakura murmured. It answered quite a few questions. The Lightning element was the most offensive of all the basic elements – indeed, the only defensive use of the element she was familiar with offhand was the side effect of the Raijin. The sword that cut chakra – by repelling it from the blade itself, and also repelling from the blade corona whatever touched the blade, it forced the chakra it touched to become Lightning and then tore it apart.

And in a way, that was offensive itself.

And now she knew why. Electromagnetism was one of the four fundamental forces of the universe itself.

That there were four was simply obvious – and that, alone of the forces, Electromagnetism was the only one with a directly associated chakra nature. The other three forces – which escaped her, but she knew they were there – were things which chakra either ignored or overrode. Electromagnetism was the one chakra embraced.

The aria came to her, once more, and this time she gave it voice. She felt very good about this time.

_"I am the legacy of the gods._

_Insight is my way,_

_And Mystery is my path._

_I have seen and understood all things._

_Been both fire and water,_

_Leapt from earth to air,_

_Danced at the centre of my faceted self._

_Every aspect I have worn woven from blue and gold._

_I am, and will always be, Sakura-"_

* * *

-Naruto tumbled out of bed onto the floor. "Ow… what the hell happened?"

Kuda didn't reply. Naruto looked down at his skin, and saw that the animate tattoo was still asleep. "Hey, wake up!"

Nothing.

_Hey, Millie? What the hell's going on?_

**_Huh?_** Millie replied, sleepily. **_Did it work?_**

_Did what work?_

**_You were going to try merging my power with Sage mode, weren't you?_**

Naruto blinked. _That wasn't a dream?_

**_Not that I noticed. Did we have the same dream?_**

_Don't know._ Naruto looked out the window. "Mind scrambling your chakra? I think there's something bad going on…"

Millie complied, and Kuda awoke with a gasp of surprise. "What just happened?"

"I don't know, but it can't be good. There's nobody patrolling the roofs, and you were in some kind of an illusion."

Kuda hummed. "Plan?"

"Find the others, for starters." Naruto opened his window, set his security seals, and jumped out.

* * *

-Sasuke's eyes snapped open.

_That's the ceiling of my room. Why am I still in bed?_

_Some kind of illusion? Most likely._

_How was I attacked?_

He flicked his eyes over to the window, and then the door. No sign of disturbance.

_Wide area, then? How wide area?_

_And powerful. It shut down my ability to move, and wove a completely believable world. It broke when-_

_When I used my Mangekyo Sharingan. This suggests it is a Mangekyo power._

_Probable caster is Akatsuki. Probable motive – unknown. Determine time since illusion initiation. If it was since yesterday, then it is likely to be their world-capture illusion._

All this ran through his mind in less than a second, as he began to get out of bed.

By the time he was dressed, a plan had firmed up. _Find the others, compare notes. Shared world, or individual? When? Primary questions._

_If they have not broken it, use Mangekyo on them to break it myself._

Sasuke shot out the door, fully ready for war.

* * *

-Sakura felt light. Like she didn't weigh anything. And the endless vista of possibility bloomed before her.

There was the her that she _had_ been, moments ago. But that her was wrapped up in a monumental genjutsu, one that looked like it could ensnare entire populations.

One that _had_ ensnared an entire population, she realized, looking around. Everywhere, there were slightly different versions of herself. Doing slightly different things. She could feel all of them, faintly, like echoes… or perhaps like glimpses of a book as one rifled through it.

Many of them were bare shadows. Only going through the motions of a daily routine, in case the illusion for that particular ensnared person would require "her" to interact with it. For those in Konoha, it was a little more detailed – for those who knew her, a little more detailed still.

And she _knew_ how it was working. Every last detail of how it constructed a net of completely inescapable illusion around whomever the target of that illusory bubble happened to be. It reached deep down into their desires and beliefs and needs, and gave them whatever fitted with what they already knew – and where there was chance, picked the nicer outcomes.

That meant that the real Sasuke hadn't asked her out, she realized, and her heart sank for a moment. The illusion had used that lure, and she had been tricked. Reeled in, not even suspecting the truth.

But she _was_ aware now. In fact, she knew her true name, so she was more self-aware than she had ever been before.

_Sakura._ Three syllables, but such a simple interpretation was like saying the Dead Demon Consuming Seal was a circle and a squiggle, or the Cursed Seal of Heaven some commas. There were melodic overtones and undertones and an entire symphony of sound, all packaged up in the higher harmonics of the musical word.

The mighty tree with delicate petals. The new life that represents death. The eternal symbol of transience. The earthly tree which represents the clouds. Petals of pure colour, where all the beauty is in the variations.

Dichotomy, in a name.

And _Lightning_ had been helpful in understanding that, she knew. It was an element of dichotomy, in the most fundamental way.

She reached out, and touched the _her_ who was at the centre of her own illusion. It fell away like gossamer. The others faded from her perception, and she was once more Sakura Haruno.

But the memory of _Sakura_ lingered, and she could still see without effort what had taken the conscious summoning of gold chakra before.

A memory presented itself. Neither Naruto nor Sasuke's versions of her had been still present when she had become transcendent. They must have broken out themselves.

She hurried downstairs, weaving a scrying jutsu out of thin air, and pinpointed them both. Each was headed for their normal training ground - good.

A petal-swirling Body Flicker sent her flashing across space to join them.

* * *

"Well, this is bad." Naruto summarized.

"You're telling me…" Sakura muttered. "At least it only took effect last night, so what Deidara told us is true. And since you, in particular, have not dropped back into it, it looks like it has only one chance."

"Most area mental-invasion illusions are like that." Sasuke agreed. "They can't keep firing to catch anyone in the area who the first one missed, because the very act of firing will disrupt the chakra maintaining the illusion."

"So." Naruto said, clapping his hands. "Our total force consists of us three, Kuda, Millie, our summons and possibly Gaara."

"Why Gaara?" Sakura asked, before nodding. "Oh, right, of course. Shukaku might have broken the illusion one way or another."

"Exactly. Now, I think we basically need to go beat up Akatsuki. Any objections?"

"None from me." Sasuke said. "Anyone else we can bring as reinforcements, though?"

"They have to be able to break the illusion from inside." Sakura said, eyes slightly unfocused. "Nothing can really get through – no external chakra. Millie and Kuda are partially integrated into your chakra system, so that's what meant it broke for them too."

"How do you know?"

"I just do." Sakura said, shrugging. "Not sure why. But it makes sense, somehow."

She frowned. "Actually, I could probably _help_ people break it. But it still has to be a person with a technique that could break the illusion anyway, and someone who knows me reasonably well."

"Hinata?" Naruto asked.

Sakura shook her head. "I don't think the Byakugan is enough to break this. If it was, at least one Hyuga would already have escaped it – they turn it on as part of their morning routine, some of them."

"Right." Sasuke frowned. "Sharingan work – Mangekyo anyway, and I don't think there _is_ another kind any more. Kakashi?"

"On it." Sakura sat seiza and began to breathe deeply and evenly.

"I think we'd better make a list while she's in there." Naruto said.

* * *

Kakashi passed the bits of blade to his student. "You're sure you can fix it?"

"Not _sure_, no." Sakura replied, unwrapping the cloth to look at the prized Hatake White Light Chakra Sabre. "But I can give it a go."

"Thank you, Sakura." Kakashi said, sighing. "I should have had it fixed years ago… but guilt over how I broke the blade was stopping me. Maybe I can let go of that guilt at the same time as the blade's wounds are healed away."

"Maybe." Sakura agreed, then twitched. "Mind you, I don't hold out much hope."

"Pardon?" Kakashi asked, sure he'd misheard.

"I said I don't hold out much hope that I'll be able to fix it. Look, the chakra network of the blade is actually cauterized."

Kakashi raised his blindfold and activated his Sharingan. "I don't…see… wait. I don't see _anything_ with my left eye."

"That's because there's nothing to see." Sakura smiled sadly. "This is an illusion. Go Mangekyo with your left eye and that should break it completely. Sorry, sensei."

Kakashi's eye twitched into the bladed petals-

* * *

And he snapped awake in the ready room.

All around him, there were other ninja – Chunin and Jonin, slumped where they'd been when the illusion triggered. Izumo was sprawled across the entire floor, one hand stretched towards a smashed glass of something that had _better_ not be alcohol.

"What just happened?" He asked, slightly confused. "Must have been one hell of an illusion to get all of us…"

Sakura. She'd been in the illusion with him, hadn't she? He'd better go find her.

As he made for the door, stepping over Izumo, someone else stirred.

* * *

"So, that's how it is." Kurenai muttered. "Ah well. Looks like it finally paid off."

She turned from the table, on which rested twenty senbon – none of them dug onto the table surface, and all of them balanced perfectly on their points.

She wasn't sure if other illusion specialists did it, but Kurenai had two tricks for detecting if she was in an illusion which she practiced twice a day. For those illusions which were imposed on others, she had a box in her apartment with a complex pattern inside it, which was only ever opened for her to check, and which displayed something subtly off if anyone else did.

That had been fine.

But for those illusions which infiltrated the mind, and had the mind itself make the illusion's details fill in gaps, she had this little senbon-balancing trick.

It was, essentially, impossible in the real world. But her deepest desire, one she had in fact made damned sure and certain was her deepest desire – and her deepest fear, too – was that this test be correct.

So, it had shown her the correct answer. She was in an illusory world of someone else's creation.

Right. Step two.

She scrambled her chakra. Nothing, as expected – something that could trap her without her even noticing would be more powerful than her relatively low chakra supply.

An illusion this complex would take up mental power to maintain somehow. Either hers or that of some other entity.

And, fortunately, she had just the approach to take.

What had originally made her wary was the news that her old teammates had been found, alive after so long, in a bunker in Oto territory. The strike team (Asuma's, in fact) had told her that they'd only just got there before some hulk of a ninja tried to kill them in a rage.

So she marched straight out of the building, and up to Enka Merume. "Enka, it's been a while."

"You have no idea, 'nai." Enka scratched the back of his neck. "And look at you, a Jonin! Never thought you'd get so far. Do you have a team?"

"Yes, I do." Kurenai nodded, playing along. "Three skilled young chunin… I sometimes feel like their mother as much as anything." She frowned. "Actually… what was your mother's name? I never found out."

"I… er… I don't know." Enka said, suddenly looking troubled.

"What about your father?"

"Chojuro." Enka answered promptly. "Remember? He trained Hatake in swordsmanship."

"I do." Kurenai said. "And what was your mother's speciality?"

"…I don't know."

"Strange." Kurenai tapped her chin. "Perhaps there's some rational explanation. What was the team like that captured you?"

"…I don't know."

"What were you doing when you were captured?"

"I don't know that either." Enka was starting to look panicked.

"Are you real?"

"No." Enka answered, relieved that one had come up that he knew the answer to… then blinked, and his eyes widened. "Wait, I didn't…"

"If you're not real, then what should make me think the rest of this world is?"

A sudden stabbing pain, like a migraine, hit, her vision wavered-

* * *

-And she was waking up in the ready room.

"Kurenai?" Kakashi's voice asked. "Are you alright? You managed to escape the illusion?"

"Yes." She got out, coming unsteadily to her feet. "I asked the illusion too many questions that nobody alive knows the answer to."

"That worked?"

"Only because I already knew that I was in an illusion. Had I not known, I am sure that my own mind would have invented plausible alternatives."

* * *

There was nothing, Deidara knew, that was quite so awesome as sanctioned demolitions.

Instead of trying to stop you, they basically gave you an area of influence and said "go wild!"

Konoha had already done that, and he was busily turning the Uchiha District into a series of gradually deepening and merging craters.

"Hey, Deidara?"

Deidara turned around, to see the pink-haired chick on an ink bird. "What is it, yeah?"

"Just wondering, what's under that eyepatch of yours? Is it a Sharingan?"

The (former?) missing-nin turned, shocked. "Sharingan, yeah? No, yeah! My eye is trained to see through Sharingan illusions, because they twist my art and defuse it! Yeah!"

"Oh, okay. Sorry." The pink haired girl – Sakura, that was it – looked contrite. "Just… it sometimes seems like most people with eyepatches have Sharingan under them."

"I do know what you mean, yeah. Especially because Tobi has Sharingan. One of the reasons I dislike him now, yeah."

"Well, it does let a Sharingan user see all the detail of an explosion in slow motion, and…" Sakura tailed off. "Your eye can see through Sharingan illusions? How?"

"I trained it with this, yeah!" Deidara pointed to the eyepatch. "See, it's a scope that lets me see long distances, yeah? But the whole shebang enhances my eye whenever I'm not using it. By now, I can make it see what's really there, yeah."

"Neat! Mind if I do a little test?" Sakura asked, making handseals.

"Go ahead, yeah."

Sakura vanished in a swirl of petals. Her voice came out of nowhere. "Invisibility. Can you spot me?"

"I like a challenge, yeah!" Deidara pulled his eyepiece off-

* * *

-and fell out of bed.

Naruto grabbed his arm to help him up. "Morning. Sorry, it was the only way Sakura could think of to break the illusion."

"Huh, yeah." Deidara looked around. "Let me guess, yeah. That moon eye illusion already went off?"

"Yeah." Naruto said.

"Right." Deidara cracked his knuckles, and his hands muttered protests. "Let's get to blowing Tobi and the rest of those bastards off the face of the planet, yeah!"

"Hold on." Naruto cautioned. "We're going to make sure all of us who are going in are going together. That means we need to pick up Kakashi and Gaara."

"Gaara?" Deidara asked, suddenly nervous. "Uh, he has no hard feelings about my killing him, yeah?"

"Probably not." Naruto shrugged.

* * *

"Why is Deidara hiding behind you, Naruto?" Gaara asked.

"No reason, yeah!" Deidara said, defiantly. "I just feel like it, yeah."

"Very well. What is our plan?"

"I can show you where the main base is, yeah." Deidara volunteered. "They moved out of Rain country and there's this gigantic underground cavern, yeah? It's full of really stupid clones of the white half of Zetsu, yeah."

"Define 'really stupid.'" Sakura asked. "I mean, you know. Naruto bad, or worse?"

"Naruto could beat them in shogi, yeah." Deidara said promptly. "They're _really_ stupid. Yeah."

"Okay. Ideas?" Naruto asked.

"Our main advantage is aerial." Sasuke said. "With both myself and Deidara, along with Gaara's personal sand flight technique, we can remain airborne and close in on wherever the Ten-Tails itself is."

"And then blow it up, yeah?" Naruto and Deidara chorused.

"Pretty much." Sakura volunteered. "Like all enormous chakra constructs, it's solid enough that it can take a lot of punishment – but healing away that punishment drains available chakra. I still don't know even IF it's something that can be killed, much less how, but worst comes to worst we can force it to break the illusion and then Nagato can throw it back into the moon… or whatever."

"Why didn't you wake him up, actually?" Kurenai asked. "I understand your method of breaking the illusion involves helping the subject break it themselves, but… wouldn't the Rinnegan suffice?"

"It might." Sakura said, nodding. "But the main problem is that he's very ill. It's too far for his Paths to stay properly under control, and without Tsunade or Konan we can't move him safely."

"I see." Kurenai nodded. "I wasn't aware of those details – thank you for elaborating."

She then frowned. "Though considering the calibre of opposition we may be facing, I doubt I would be much help myself. Perhaps a compromise might be a good plan? Break the illusion on him, and he and I shall keep Konoha safe."

"Good idea." Sakura nodded, then closed her eyes for a second. "Alright, that should do it."

"That was quick." Kakashi said.

"Well, I… it's hard to explain. Basically, I copied my full personality over into the fragment of myself that exists in his personal illusion world. It'll take a while for that Sakura to find him and get him to turn his Rinnegan on, but I've done what I need to."

"Alright." The female jonin nodded to herself. "I'll go to his room –"

"203." Sakura supplied. "Fifth floor."

"Thank you. Anyway, I'll go there and fill him in as he awakens."

"You have our gratitude." Gaara said, formally. "Now, we should set off as soon as possible."

Sasuke contemplated for a moment. "Deidara, put a clone on a clay bird out in front. I'll fly above everyone else, and the rest of you keep in loose formation. Naruto, Sage Mode if you can."

"Will do."

"Sakura, keep an eye out for anything else thrown at us. I'm going to keep a Mangekyo up just in case they try restarting the illusion."

"I hope they don't." Sakura agreed. "And yes, I'll see if I spot anything."

"Sensei… reserve. You're our most experienced."

"I understand, Sasuke." Kakashi said, all business.

"Gaara, how well can you summon sand outside of Suna?"

"It takes a substantial amount of chakra, but I can create desert terrain on any given battlefield." The Kazekage said. "Shukaku is willing to keep me charged as far as he is able, though of course his chakra levels are lower than those of the Kyuubi by a substantial amount."

"Good. As soon as a static battle starts to develop, lay it down. We're better served by terrain friendly to you than anything else."

"Understood." Sand flowed from nowhere, and Gaara began levitating on a cloud of sand.

"Very well. Let's go."

Sasuke slammed his thumb to the ground, summoning a trio of hawks and a Thunder Bird, and Deidara launched his clay bird decoy before unsealing a dragon he'd made earlier.

"Nice." Naruto commented.

"You like it? Yeah, this dragon breathes explosives, yeah!"

* * *

"So…" Naruto said, questioningly, banking his hawk closer to the great clay dragon. "What did the illusion show you?"

"What do you think?" Deidara asked. "Blowing things up, yeah!"

"Should have expected that!" Naruto laughed. "Kakashi?"

"I only got as far as asking Sakura to remake my father's weapon, the White Light Chakra Sabre." Kakashi said. "Then Sakura helped me break out of the illusion."

"Neat. For me it was just another day's training, really. Or, I didn't get far into it. Gaara?"

"Mother." Gaara said, simply.

A spike of white light shot from the ground, and disintegrated the clay clone ahead of them.

"Evasive!" Kakashi shouted, and the hawks/dragon/cloud of sand split up on diverging vectors.

"Who was that?" Naruto yelled, casting around with Sage Mode. "I can't feel anything!"

"Someone in bandages." Sakura said, frowning. "I can barely see him – it's like he's made himself part of the world, and he's so far away!"

Lines of burning air shot down from well overhead, some of them intercepted by cones and cylinders of white light.

"I recognize that." Kakashi said, before raising his voice. "It's the second Kage of Earth! Orochimaru must have resurrected him!"

"Techniques?"

"He defines shapes and then disintegrates what's inside them!"

Naruto tracked the pattern of lights for a moment. "Looks like Sasuke's winning, to me."

"Why?"

"Those shots of his are getting lower and lower."

"Boom!" Deidara shouted, and the white light shapes stopped. Railgun blasts rained down for another second or so unopposed, then likewise stopped.

Sakura glanced over at Deidara. "Did you just blow the second Tsuchikage up?"

"Yeah, yeah! Mini dragon missile C2, yeah!"

"Sasuke's not going to be too happy with that." Naruto said, before shrugging. "Eh, we're ninja."

"I do sometimes forget."

"Well, they know we're here now." Kakashi pointed, as several shapes began to move near the cratered field the Tsuchikage had been in.

"Wow." Sakura lensed the air again, her hawk perceptively moving to hover, and began scanning the ground. "It's like a history book… loads of dead Kages. Fourth Kaze… third Rai… second Mizu… and so many A to S rank ninja. Look, five of the Seven Swordsmen."

"I would, but we're too high up." Naruto said.

"Oh, sorry. And… wow. The Gold and Silver Brothers, I think?"

**_I remember them!_** Millie said. **_They were tasty. But then they ate my stomach and that was ow._**

"I shall take on my father." Gaara droned, and began to drop out of formation.

At around the same time, Sasuke stated his preference with a barrage of hyper-velocity shuriken that ricoched crazily from the third Raikage. The Thunder Bird stooped through their formation, giving a harsh cry.

Sakura shrugged. "The second Mizu was an illusionist, right? I'll take him on."

"I best handle the Gold and Silver Brothers." Naruto said. "Millie has prior experience with them."

"That and I think they can go up to six tails…" Kakashi muttered. "Right. Deidara, looks like you and I have to handle the Swordsmen."

"Works for me, yeah!" Deidara said. "Dibs on Shibuki, yeah?"

"Alright." Kakashi allowed. "Though the prospect is frightening…"

"It'll keep you on your toes, yeah?" Deidara's dragon reabsorbed much of its' tail, and produced a half-dozen independent dragon missiles. "Hold on, I've got to reload. Yeah."

* * *

"Father." Gaara said, monotonously.

"Son." The Fourth Kazekage replied.

"So… what actually happened to you?" Gaara asked, curious. "How was it that Orochimaru killed you?"

"Letter opener." The Fourth said, disgusted. "So, how are you? Still going mad?"

Gaara blinked. "I'm wearing the hat. The Kazekage hat."

"So? Have you _seen_ what the Fourth Mizukage did?"

"You do have a point." Gaara admitted. "But no, it turns out that Shukaku was under mind control. He's actually quite fun, if rowdy."

"I'm not sure how any of this is really possible." The elder said. "But, well, I am going to have to kill you know. Orders. Gold Dust Wave!"

"Instant Desert." Gaara replied. Two colossal waves, one of sand and one of gold, slammed into each other like freight trains.

"Where do you even get all of the gold?" Gaara asked.

"Not sure, actually…" his father tailed off. "It's kind of just… there."

"I still do not understand why you did not use it to solve Suna's trade problems."

"I did."

"Then you did not get a good price."

"Shouldn't your sand have run out by now?"

Gaara shook his head. "I have synchronized with my Bijuu. It is easy so long as he is asleep."

"Hm. Interesting."

"Yes. Also, I have a summon contract now."

"It does tend to be useful to have one."

More sand, normal and gold, crashed together in an unending susurrus of grains.

"I died once." Gaara volunteered. "Chiyo brought me back."

"That old bat? Interesting. What was it like, coming back to life?"

"Not as impressive as you would imagine. It was a little like waking up."

"You know what that's like?"

"Well, I woke up near a large devastated area surrounded by much of the village, so it has similarities to when Shukaku possessed me."

"Huh."

At that point, Totoro clubbed Gaara's father on the back of the head with a large plank.

"I suspect you were not really trying." Gaara muttered. "Sand Burial."

**_I think I know why he wasn't trying._** Shukaku volunteered. **_When they did the whole sealing thing, your mother did love you… sorry, I kind of forgot it was important before now._**

"You are sure?"

**_I was there. In a kettle. Granted, I was monumentally pissed off, but I was there. She totally held you while the last of her life ebbed away. It was kind of heartwarming._**

"Thank you for telling me. Finally."

**_I was drunk and hypnotized, what more do you want?_** The enormous sand monster grumbled.

"Drunk?"

**_They filled the kettle with sake a few times to keep me quiet._**

* * *

Sasuke's Thunder Bird swooped only low enough to let him off, then rose back into the air and began shaping lightning chakra, forming an enormous charge.

In the absence of a thundercloud, that would work well for Kirin if he needed it.

Sasuke's eyes tracked the Third Raikage as he moved, evaluating his target. He already knew that the Third was ridiculously fast, more durable than just about anyone else who had ever lived, and could fight a Tailed Beast – the Eight-Tails, in fact – to a draw. It had taken ten thousand enemy shinobi three days and nights to finally kill him. Which, actually, was a bit ridiculous. Maybe they were all genin?

Oh, and he had the Lightning Armour as well. Sasuke could see roughly how it was done, but not exactly – and that it would neutralize just about any Lightning technique he tried.

A quick barrage of Chidori senbon confirmed it, as the Raikage approached. They didn't even make it to his skin.

Sasuke snapped the Raijin on and blocked a vicious knife-hand strike, then dodged away from another with the benefit of his Sharingan.

It wasn't enough, though. "Mitsunari."

The world didn't slow any more, but his own body sped up to match his eyes.

It was like sparring with Naruto the times he didn't use his Sharingan, or… no, that wasn't right either, because he _did_ have the forewarning his eyes gave. He had to react half on instinct and half with cold calculation, always interposing the blade between any strike he could not dodge and his body, not allowing himself to be contacted by any part of his brawler of an opponent.

It was a losing battle, he knew. Even when alive, the Third had had such ludicrous stamina that even Naruto could not match it. He had only died when his chakra was utterly exhausted – by three days of constant battle.

Mangekyo eyes spun furiously, deciphering every nuance of the Lightning Armour. It infiltrated the nerves – and there was some dermal reinforcement – atomic bonds at will – all matter was made of emptiness and electricity.

No wonder the Raikage's skin was so strong. He could take that which made things strong and say to it, "stronger".

But there _had_ to be a weakness. Nothing was a perfect trump card.

A cry echoed from overhead. Sasuke disengaged with an instant flicker, and gasped for breath as lightning rained down from above.

Then he saw something. The Raikage had slowed when he was hit. Just for an instant, but-

Yes.

The lightning armour was powerful, durable… and precise. It was so well balanced that any further power input made things worse.

And, more to the point, it was in exact phase with his nervous impulses.

Sasuke flashed through the summoning seals again, and summoned Tobias and a Thunder Bird chick.

"What do you need?" Tobias asked, all business.

"I need you to be ready to hit the old Raikage, over there, when I disrupt his lightning armour. And I need the chick to give me an Electric Aura Armour jutsu. I'll be focusing all my attention on the Raijin."

"You can do it?" Tobias asked the chick, who nodded. "Very well."

The young sage spread his wings and red tail, and leapt. Sasuke could already see natural chakra gather along his wing feathers.

Turning, he caught the chick in a very minor illusion. It didn't stop him from perceiving anything, in fact, just supplied extra information. Faster than talking.

Obediently, the young Thunder Bird pulsed alternating current at fifty cycles a second across his body. That would do for the initial clash.

Sasuke switched focus to the Raijin, and altered its' form. Rather than the expanded shape of the overedge, he compressed it. It was barely a _tanto_, and as he activated Masamune it shone with a brilliant blue.

"Er…" the chick said, sounding nervous. "Incoming?"

Sasuke's head snapped up, and he barely blocked a knife-hand strike with the Raijin.

Backpedalling with fluid grace in the grip of Mitsunari, he watched both the Lightning Armour and the Third's movements intently, blocking every attempt at an attack less than a tenth of a second before it hit.

_So… that means he has a 40 times per second signal for his left first finger's second joint, and a 35 per second for his right second finger's third joint…_

Bit by bit, Sasuke matched fluctuations in the Lightning Armour to the associated muscle movements. It sped up nerve impulses – which meant it had to carry the signal.

And…

He sent a complex signal pattern to the chick, flipped the Raijin to block-

And took a hand straight to the chest.

The Third blinked.

"Tadakatsu." Sasuke informed him, then stabbed the Sword of the Thunder God straight into the no-longer-moving right arm that had stopped abruptly at his skin.

The pulsing signal in his Electric Aura Armour had overridden the Third's control of his arm, making it lock up. The Raijin overrode _that_, sending a sequence of commands which forced the right arm to stab straight at his own chest and pierce the heart.

Sasuke vanished in a puff of smoke as the orbiting bird summoned him and the chick, just before Tobias hit the Third's vulnerable form like a clawed meteorite.

* * *

Sakura landed lightly. "Thanks. So, where's the Second Mizukage?"

"Hello, child." A voice said. "Any idea how Mist is doing these days?"

"They're alright." She shrugged, noticing that the speaking voice was coming from an illusion. "The Fourth was a bit of a nut job, but the Fifth is much more stable. Mei Terumei, a Lava and Boil user."

"Ah, I see. Thank you. Now, I have to ask. The pink hair?"

"Natural." Sakura shrugged. "Aha!" She spun an illusion around herself, and vanished.

"What?" The Second frowned, then his eyes widened as a fifty foot otter materialized.

"Hi, Daxter!" Sakura's voice came from somewhere. "Hey, ten feet to the left of that rock spire is an appropriately sized clam. Lunchtime!"

"Thanks!" Daxter's voice boomed out, and he pounced.

Sakura winced as she watched Daxter. Getting the clam properly secure with three of his paws and breaking off the spire with the fourth, he started hammering away at it in the same way normally sized otters attacked normally sized clams.

"That's got to hurt…"

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow." The Mizukage muttered, as the Boss summon broke methodically through his defences. As soon as the shell cracked, Sakura materialized and electrocuted him to prevent him shifting form.

"And that's that." She said, satisfied. "Wow, new record. That was a really bad matchup for you, sorry."

"I can see…" the former Kage said, slightly dazed.

* * *

Naruto went in hard, landing just behind a Sage Rasenshuriken and forming clones straightaway to make sure he had a clear sight radius.

"Wait, are those things the Treasured Tools?"

Kinkaku and Ginkaku nodded, in unison.

"Cool. Wait, I know how these work. If I say the word I say most in my life… something bad happens. Thanks again, Niyi! Speech therapy might just save my life here."

The brothers looked put out, and dropped three of the five tools. Kinkaku held the pot, and Ginkaku held the fan.

"And the pot… yeah, something about replying when someone calls your name? Right, not speaking any more."

Kinkaku looked at Ginkaku. "Brother?"

Ginkaku didn't respond, looking pointedly at the pot.

"Oh, sorry." The Gold brother dropped the pot, and the Silver exhaled with relief. "Anyway. Should we blast him with the fan, or just go straight to Tailed state?"

"Eh, tails." Ginkaku said. "Been a while."

Both brothers concentrated, then practically exploded as each pulled on six tails of chakra.

_Millie?_ Naruto asked.

**_It's yours._**

Nodding, Naruto pulled on seven tails of chakra and felt himself transform.

"So." He said, once all three of the ninja had turned into giant foxes. "Sumo, Pankration or boxing?"

"Pardon?" Kinkaku asked.

"I was asking what rules we were going to use."

"Anything is allowed in the Ninja world." Ginkaku said. "Rules are for the weak."

"Okay!" Naruto said brightly. "Demonic sage mode."

A clone popped, and the reddish-orange fur that Naruto had sprouted became pure, vibrant orange.

"Is that legal?" Kinkaku asked. "Oh, wait."

"Me and my big mouth…" Ginkaku lamented. "Well, brother, let's make a good fight of it."

"You said it, brother."

What followed, except for the larger numbers of tails and the scale, was a lot like kits fighting in the Forest of Confusion.

* * *

"Awww…" Deidara muttered. "You'd think five A rank ninja would be more durable, yeah."

Kakashi nodded absently, looking at the mess. Each of the twin blades of Kiba had a clay dragon on it, indicating that the ninja wielding them had stopped two of the incoming explosives… but the remaining four had still destroyed all five of the Seven Swordsmen members.

"So, where was that base?"

"Over here, yeah. The entrance is about a hundred metres down a tunnel here, yeah."

"Interesting…" Kakashi observed. "We're quite near the Kannabi bridge."

"Oh, yeah?"

"My team blew it up in the war." The Konoha-nin clarified. "It's when Obito died."

"Obito? Sounds like a fun guy. What was he like, yeah?"

"Hang on." Kakashi concentrated, and threw some seals. "Auditory illusion."

Deidara watched Kakashi's memories of the Uchiha goofball. "Seems like a fun guy, yeah." Then he heard something he recognized, during the play of the Kannabi bridge incident. "Play that bit again, yeah?"

Kakashi complied.

"That can't be good, yeah." Deidara muttered. "I recognize that voice, yeah. It's Tobi's serious voice, yeah."

"Tobi?" Kakashi said, then frowned, a suspicion slowly creeping over him. "But… even if… no, that's not possible. Is it? He fought and nearly beat the Fourth Hokage only two years after Kannabi." Kakashi's mind raced. "You said his right eye was the visible one?"

"Yeah."

"And did you ever see him do anything unusual?"

"It's _Tobi_, yeah." Deidara pointed out, then thought. "He has an intangibility technique, yeah. And a capture technique."

"Capture?"

"He draws things into some kind of personal world, yeah? Then he brings them out again somewhere else. Pretends they were in his pockets, yeah, but I saw him once, yeah."

"Troubling." Kakashi admitted. "My own Eternal Mangekyo has the ability to banish things from reality – I don't know where they go. But if the shared concept of Obito's eyes were, hypothetically, the ability to connect to that world…" Kakashi shook his head. "I don't understand how he could possibly have become so twisted, though. Obito was a fun loving child who treasured his comrades above all else. Tobi, by contrast, used the newborn Naruto as a hostage."

"Genjutsu?" Deidara suggested. "They can really screw with someone, yeah."

"It's still hard to believe."

"Fair enough. Could be I was mistaken, yeah."

* * *

Naruto bashed Kinkaku repeatedly against the ground, until he finally went limp. Exhaling, the transformed young man surveyed the area.

Two formerly-six-tailed undead ninja gradually reverting, check. Cratered field of rubble about a kilometre across, check.

Gaara, Sakura and Sasuke arriving, check.

"Hi, guys!" He said, reverting slowly. "These guys were a bit of a struggle. Hey, neat, the Banana Palm Fan. Anyone else want it?"

The others shook their heads. Gaara solemly pointed out that he was the one with the most chakra available by a factor of well over a hundred.

"Right, taking this. Sakura, you want to keep hold of the rest of them? Or shall I have Mandias keep them for now?"

"That second option might be safer." Sakura said. "I don't really have anywhere better to put things."

"Right. Summoning: Mandias! Hey, got some legendary weapons for you, old guy."

Mandias blinked. "What happened here?"

"Two guys with six tails of Millie's chakra each. I basically grabbed them by the tails and used them as flails. Oh, and I got demonic sage mode working."

The elderly sage shuddered. "I dread to think. That explains the large number of craters in the shape of six-tailed kitsune. Anyway, you mentioned legendary weapons?"

"Yep!" Naruto handed them over. "Four of the five Treasured Tools. Good thing you told me how they work."

"My pleasure."

Gaara walked up to them again. This surprised the others, as they hadn't seen him leave.

"What were you doing?"

"Destroying the brains. Standard zombie procedure." The Kazekage said calmly.

* * *

"Right. Here goes." Sakura muttered. "Everyone on the lookout for traps. Or any of the remaining Akatsuki members."

"Wouldn't they have been caught in the genjutsu as well?"

"You can never be sure. Besides, it doesn't work on non living individuals. Did any Akatsuki member get killed without their body being destroyed?"

"Don't… think so… Itachi was cremated, I think."

As they talked, they entered into a huge underground chamber full of thousands of quiescent clones.

"These look like the white half of Zetsu, yeah." Deidara said. "Didn't know there were so many of them, yeah."

"There's Orochimaru." Sasuke pointed. "Lying asleep over there. He must be in the illusion like everyone else. And there's Tobi."

Kakashi started for the indicated ninja, then slowed, puzzled. "That's a very old Uchiha Madara. What the..?"

**INTRUDERS.**

"Was that you?" Naruto asked, nervously. "It didn't sound like anyone here."

Sakura whimpered. "That's a… LOT of chakra."

The opposite wall of the chamber collapsed, and an enormous creature shouldered its' way through, combined Sharingan-Rinnegan rolling madly as it locked onto each of the assault team in turn.

Sasuke snapped the Raijin on, as the Akatsuki members began to stir. "Naruto, stall that thing! Everyone else, start clearing the rest of Akatsuki and these clones!"

Naruto leapt forward, transforming all the way in mid-leap as the Ten-Tails began a charge, and the two colossal creatures collided with an earth-shaking _boom._

"Everyone back, or get a shield up if you have it!" Sakura called, looking at the roof. "This place is about to cave in!"

Rocks rained down, slowly and then much faster. Sasuke and Kakashi flickered out of the way, Deidara and Sakura slipped underground, and Gaara enveloped himself in sand.

When the ground stopped collapsing several seconds later, what used to be a series of connected underground caverns was now a series of irregular sinkholes, with hundreds of surviving white Zetsu and a number of S-Class nin emerging from the rubble.

Naruto and the Ten-Tails had barely noticed the collapse, swapping between building-destroying physical attacks and chakra blasts that could level half of Konoha. While Naruto seemed to have less than half the available demonic chakra of the incarnate Ten-Tails, his fusing it with Sage Mode left the two of them on a very equal footing.

To the rest of them, that meant periodic back-blast from explosions washing over them.

* * *

Sasuke clashed with Kisame, using the full mobility of the smaller Raijin to keep the enormous Samehada away from him. "Why are you following this guy, anyway?"

"You mean Tobi? Or Madara?" Kisame chuckled. "Because of the promise of a world of truth. A world free from the deception of the world of Ninja."

"I've been there." Sasuke said. "And believe you me, it's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Mine was fine." Kisame shrugged.

Samehada grumbled.

"Should your sword be doing that?"

"I think it's annoyed it can't shave your sword's chakra." Kisame answered. "That's the Raijin, isn't it?"

"Yes." Sasuke reversed the blade for a moment to block a particularly nasty attack, then returned it to the normal grip. "And I think you'd have done better in Konoha."

"Konoha is not immune from the corruption of the world of ninja."

"No, but it's not terrible." Sasuke said. "I mean, Naruto lives there."

Both of them glanced over at the battling titans.

"Anyway." The Uchiha continued. "Who, really, _is_ Tobi? There's nobody real by that name."

"He's really an Uchiha – but I don't know which one." Kisame said. "He called himself Madara…"

"But that was a lie." Sasuke pointed out. "Great start to a world of truth."

"Eh. I'm in it for the sword fights anyway." Kisame said. "Speaking of which, nice skills. Didn't expect someone from Konoha to be all that good."

"I trained with the objective of beating Itachi for years, then trained to beat whoever else killed the Uchiha clan after that." Sasuke replied. "Oh, and…"

He brought his free hand around, sparkling with the Chidori Spear. Kisame's eyes widened, as he tried to cope with the sudden increase in the number of Sasuke's weapons.

Despite the increase in difficulty, he still had time for conversation. "Wait, Itachi wasn't the one who killed the Uchiha?"

"No, it was mostly the Tobi person." Sasuke said. "Why?"

"Oh, just that you think you know a guy…" Kisame tailed off, then spun Samehada in an improbable manner for anyone without Water blade channelling and launched an attack combination.

* * *

Deidara carpeted the rubble with explosives repeatedly. "How many of these damn Zetsu are there?"

* * *

Sakura wove in and out of cover, zeroing in on Orochimaru.

When she was about fifty feet away, he turned with the speed of a striking snake. "Ah, the pink one. I didn't see you do much in the Chunin exams. Learned a little… bite, since then?"

"Well, I _did_ unravel your Curse Seal. Interesting properties it has. Using natural chakra to stabilize opening the gates?"

"Is _that_ what Jugo does?" Orochimaru wondered. "That explains why birds like landing on him…"

"You didn't know? All this time, you didn't know why it did what it did?" Sakura sighed. "Not very good at science, are you?"

"Silence! I am the ultimate intellect, the one who has unravelled the secrets of life and bridged the gap between earth and heaven!"

Orochimaru reached into his mouth and drew out the Kusanagi from his mindscape. "I think I'll kill you now."

"Catch me if you can." Sakura vanished in a swirl of petals, and a marbled Water Rasengan nearly took his head off from behind.

_"I am the legacy of the gods."_

"Where did you go?" Orochimaru asked the air. Seeing something, he fired a Drilling Air Bullet at it – and killed a hapless Zetsu clone.

_"Insight is my Way, and Mystery is my Path."_

"You can't hide forever!" The Snake Sannin went flipping through the handseals for a summon, and brought out a brood of venomous snakes. "Find the pink haired one and kill her!"

_"I have seen and understood all things."_

An eruption of power shot out from the battling Bijuu, and would have bowled over any civilian. Orochimaru used the tree-walking technique to stay attached to the ground.

_"Been both fire and water,"_

A pair of otters moved like quicksilver through the rubble, launching javelins at any snake that showed itself.

_"Leapt from earth to air,"_

Snarling, Orochimaru fired off a Swamp of the Underworld. It didn't catch Sakura, and the otters blew him a raspberry before ducking under the surface of the mud to continue hunting down snakes.

_"Danced at the centre of my faceted self."_

"How are you doing this?" The Snake Sannin snarled. "I can't sense you _anywhere!_"

_"Every aspect I have worn woven from blue and gold."_

"And what is that singing?"

_"I am, and will always be, Sakura."_

The world changed. Orochimaru found himself not in a rubble-strewn crater, but in a grove of sakura trees surrounded by a thick and forbiddingly dark forest.

"…what?" The Snake Sannin was honestly stunned. "What is this?"

"This is my mind."

He whirled to see a pink-haired girl with deep blue eyes, dangling her feet into a lazy stream.

"My mental state, actualized into the world."

This time the speaker was another pink-haired girl, her eyes a light blue, standing at the top of one of the trees.

"My thoughts are real here."

This girl had orange eyes and closed the door on a lantern as she spoke, having trimmed the wick.

"It's called a reality marble."

The fourth speaker was standing atop a simple but solid bridge made of what Orochimaru recognized as quartzite – one of the hardest rocks, and a prime material for Earth element users. Noticing that this one had brown eyes, a suspicion began to form.

"It's something that you can only do if you have your true name."

This one was adjusting a lightning rod, which looked new, and had eyes of brilliant yellow.

"And there has to be something else special, as well."

The speaker this time had eyes the shimmering green of medical chakra, and closed a book as she spoke.

_"Divinity."_

The voice came from directly above. Orochimaru looked, but saw nothing.

Each of the six girls closed their eyes for a moment, in unison, and equipment formed out of nothingness. Golden light condensing into weapons – six kunai, a kusari-gama, a great axe, a pair of chakrams, two long spears, and a dozen senbon.

The one with the senbon, the green-eyed one, smiled.

It wasn't a nice smile.

"Get him, girls."

* * *

Gaara's first action, before he let down his sand defence, was to summon a small raccoon.

"I require your assistance."

The raccoon nodded, and clambered up his clothes to rest around his neck.

Gaara exhaled, slowly, and released the sand shield.

An extremely old ninja faced him.

"I see you wear the robes and hat of Suna, boy."

"I do." Gaara nodded. It was simple fact. "Who are you?"

"Madara Uchiha. I have followed the path of the Uchiha clan back into history further than any other…" his eyes blazed with the Mangekyo, and then contorted into the Rinnegan. "And I will not tolerate my plans being interfered with now! Bansho Ten'nin!"

Gaara looked up, something warning him. He saw a colossal rock descending through the atmosphere. It looked like it was at least a hundred metres across, and it was travelling so fast that simply compressing the air was heating it.

The ground rumbled and cracked around him. Boulders flew upwards, forming a shield, and the meteorite exploded off it without breaking through.

"Remarkable." Madara said, frowning. "That is Shukaku's power… but there is something more." He seemed to consider. "You are a Sage."

"I am not." Gaara denied. "I merely have the aid of one."

"The raccoon. I see." Madara's eyes switched to the Mangekyo again. "Then he must be dismissed."

A sand shield slammed into place around Gaara, and several dozen boulders tried to kill Madara. He repelled them impassively, still staring at the Kage of Sand's hiding place.

A single gesture, and the shield of sand tore apart. Another, and Gaara was forced to Flicker out of the way as a chip of rock accelerated to supersonic speed nearly took his head off.

"Foolish."

The next attack, Gaara met with his ultimately hard defence – the Shield of Shukaku. The tanuki statue resisted the first impact, but a second caused cracks and then it was engulfed in Amaterasu.

"You have the same eye powers as Itachi."

"He was the heir." Madara said, impassively. "Heir to my hatred, heir to my blood."

"Naruto found Itachi quite compassionate." Gaara said, drawing up silt and sand and pebbles and boulders into a multilayered defence.

More heavy gravity blasts picked through them as fast as Gaara could re-establish the layers.

"Then he, too, was ultimately a fool. The origin of the powers of the Uchiha is truly darkness – we are not the heirs of the Sage, but of the Juubi he broke and scattered. The might of the Uchiha is in embracing this evil."

Gaara muttered something.

"I did not hear that."

"Sasuke's kind of not evil."

"I am not entirely sure how that happened. Nevertheless."

The sword of Susano'o sliced through Gaara's defences like they were paper.

Gaara formed Shukaku's arms to try and distract Madara, hoping to re-establish his shield - and the elderly Uchiha touched them, and their chakra was drawn out, and they crumbled.

"That is surprisingly annoying." Gaara said, bringing up more earth in sealless techniques. "The Mangekyo and the Rinnegan alone are bad enough, but together?"

Madara finally battered aside the last of Gaara's defences, and fixed him with a glare. "Tsukuyomi-"

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

A ballistic Jinchuuriki slammed into Madara's body, and sent it across the nearest crater and fifteen feet into the rock wall.

Gaara shook his head, trying to shake off the effects of a day of solid mental torture. "That reminds me too much of before I met Naruto…"

"Wheee!"

He looked up, to see a ridiculously well-built man with a Kumo headband and wisps of demonic chakra around him.

The man took a pose and started rapping. "What you gonna do is what you wanna do! Just break the roof and you see the truth_-"_

"Who on earth are you?"

"I'm the Bee, you know, and don't interrupt my flow! I'm number eight, I'm great, and I'm never late!"

**_I think that's the Hachibi Jinchuuriki…_** Shukaku said, incredulously.

"Excuse me." Gaara said, getting the attention of the rapping man once more. "Are you the container of Gyūki?"

"That's right. He's my bro, you know, we can't be beat because we are the elite!"

"I… see."

A hypersonic rock from where Madara had gone was hastily blocked by the badly melted Shield of Shukaku, which shattered.

**_Gaara?_** Shukaku was suddenly excited. **_I can control the glass._**

Gaara nodded to his bijuu, and started layering defences again. "Bee. I will handle defence. Distract him, and I may be able to destroy his animation seal."

"How?"

"Apparently my Bijuu's powers include the control of glass as well as sand. If I can find the seal, I can destroy it."

"That's a neat power. Anything else _you_ got, Number Eight, in the eleventh hour?"

Gyūki's response went unheard by Gaara, but he strongly suspected it was profane.

* * *

"So…" Kakashi said, quietly. "Who are you really?"

Tobi stared impassively back. "That is something you do not need to concern yourself with."

"Kamui."

Kakashi's eye sucked Tobi's mask into a wormhole, revealing the badly damaged face of Obito Uchiha.

"So, Deidara was right. It's you."

Obito said nothing.

"I have just one question." Kakashi continued. "_WHY?_"

The Uchiha blinked. "Pardon?"

"Why? Why, and _how_, did you go in less than two years from being a ridiculously optimistic newly promoted Chunin, to being a complete and total psychopath who was nearly able to outfight Minato Namikaze and was willing to murder a newborn child in cold blood?" Kakashi rattled off. "Oh, and why did you kill off the Uchiha clan?"

"…I'm not sure I understand the question."

"Pull the other one!"

"I mean, you should already know the answer-"

"Oh, and another one. When did you get the Mangekyo?"

"When Rin died."

"No, that doesn't make sense. You had it before Rin died." Kakashi said. "The only way you could avoid Sensei killing you in less than a second after you threatened his son is your phasing technique."

"Rin died about six months before that." Obito said, in the tones of someone explaining things to a child.

"No…" Kakashi said, shaking his head. "She didn't. The Kyuubi attack killed her – she was caught in a building collapse when one floor of the hospital gave way."

"That's a pathetic lie!" Obito suddenly snarled. "You killed her! You stabbed her through the heart with your Chidori!"

"Why would I have?" Kakashi asked. "Seriously, why?"

"…I don't know! The same reason you abandoned me! But all ninja are monsters who kill people. It's why I want to end this world!"

"Abandoned?" Kakashi asked, perplexed. "We didn't abandon you. You took what certainly looked like a fatal wound, then gave me your eye, and then you said something along the lines of 'go, save Rin'. Which reminds me, how did you survive that? You had wounds Rin thought were fatal, and she was a medical nin good enough to do a field eye transplant."

"Only the strong survive in this twisted world of Ninja. I was weak, yes, but it was by the help of Uchiha Madara, one of the strong, that I survived."

"About that. I still have questions as to how you're so powerful. It makes me suspicious."

"I don't know what you mean, Kakashi."

"I was on your team, Obito. Your chakra capacity was in the yellow. Now, I've worked with Gai, I know full well what intensive training can do, but if you did nothing BUT train for two solid years you might possibly have the chakra capacity to manage to summon the Kyuubi… if she's a regular boss in scale."

"Gai always hated me."

"That's not true or even relevant." Kakashi began to pace back and forth, still ranting. "Oh, and that's yet another problem. How did you recover from the insanely nasty injuries?"

"I was cared for by Madara Uchiha. He alone of this world of ninja showed me compassion, because he had a plan to end all loss."

"You mean the illusion?" Obito nodded. "Then that's even more ridiculous. First off, Madara is a notorious traitor and filicide. Secondly, the Moon Eye Plan makes _no sense_."

"It is a perfect world."

"It's a Heaven Viewing Illusion with a bit more subtlety, that's all it is. Let's say that it's a shared world. What happens if two people have the dream to be the best at something? And if it's all individual worlds, then it destroys all human interaction to replace it with copies that go through the motions of interacting, trapping a person inside their own head."

Kakashi blinked. "Actually, by now several thousand people have probably died, because they were somewhere that falling suddenly comatose would kill them. Like mid-jump. And if this persisted, everyone in the world would die in only a few days of dehydration."

It was Obito's turn to frown. "Er…"

"And one last question. You say the ninja world is full of nothing but hatred? That it's the worst place you could possibly be?"

"It is!" Obito insisted. "Once my eyes were opened by Madara, I saw the truth!"

"Obito, you were buried under half a tonne of rocks. You might have brain damage. The only other people who knew the full plan were these Zetsu clones." Kakashi kicked absently at one which was trying to eat his shoe. "And they're morons. But my point is… _how do you know you're not in the reverse form of the Moon's Eye illusion_?"

Obito opened his mouth, ready to hurl an angry retort… and stopped. "I… I don't. I can't-"

"Finally!"

Neither of them had spoken. In fact, whoever it was that had spoken – with a harsh voice – was behind Obito.

The Uchiha turned, phasing his body to keep himself safe – and was nailed by a glare from a red-black pinwheel.

* * *

The Ten-Tails shuddered, pausing suddenly and allowing Naruto to escape out from under a devastating blow.

* * *

"You have no _idea_ how long it took me to get here!"

Kakashi glanced from the apparently unconscious Obito to the large, black crow hovering in front of him. "Who are you?"

"I am Shigehide, of the Crows. Itachi gave me the mission to bear Shisui's eye and use it on any Uchiha who was a threat to Konoha." The crow shook his head, still hovering. "It took me hours to get here! That new summoner of ours only just summoned me before the illusion activated, and I had to fly here by wing!"

Shigehide then glared at Kakashi. "And if I hear _one_ joke about 'as the crow flies'…"

"What in the name of the Rikudo Sennin have I been _doing…_" Obito muttered, coming to. "The moon? Seriously?"

Kakashi looked at the crow. "Either you broke him or you fixed him, I can't tell which. I'll take it."

"There was a hell of a lot of black chakra in there, just so you know." Shigehide informed Kakashi. "Corruption, I think. It was overlaying his emotions, and his critical thinking skills probably took a bit of a hit too."

"That _does_ make sense." Kakashi said.

Sakura condensed herself out of the air. "Wow, reality marbles take more out of you than you expect. Oh, hi, Sensei. Orochimaru's dead."

"He is?" Obito asked, from the floor.

"Oh, hi!" Sakura said. "Wow, lot of corruption residue on you. Hey, you're the guy who called himself Madara, right? How did you manage to copy the signature on the Fox summon contract over?"

"I… after Madara died, I saw myself as his successor – as _him._ Probably the insanity."

"That'd do it." Sakura nodded. "Madara came to be synonymous with an Uchiha effectively possessed by the ten tails."

Sasuke landed next to them. "I heard that. So, the one who killed my clan was possessed?"

Sakura nodded. "Yep. Not in control of his own actions."

"Though I admit it didn't have to do much to make me want to kill certain complete jerks." Obito admitted.

"Wait a moment…" Kakashi said, frowning. "Weren't you fighting Kisame?"

"I was." Sasuke nodded. "But after he summoned a truly astonishing amount of water and I electrocuted him several times, he became a giant shark thing by fusing with his sword."

"And…" Sakura pressed.

"And then a very large black man picked him up by the tail and used him to hit Uchiha Madara."

"Huh. Wonder who that is."

"Probably Killer Bee." Obito said, standing again. "He is the Jinchuuriki of the Eight Tails. And if both I and Madara were possessed, then it should probably be noted that there is also a single Zetsu with a black half. This Zetsu is presumably also possessed."

A particularly large explosion came from nearby, and Deidara shouted triumphantly. "That's the special one! Twenty extra points, yeah!"

"Sorry. 'Was.'"

"Hmmm…" Sakura frowned. "So, what happens when all the people who were possessed are either freed or blown up?"

"I am… not sure." Obito said. "I was not particularly interested in the fine details of the plan, which was probably deliberate on the part of the one possessing me."

"Yes, that makes sense." Sakura said. "Anything you _do_ know that's important, though?"

"Oh. The mixture of Senju and Uchiha chakra is required to unlock the Rinnegann. That help?"

"Interesting, especially because it means that Nagato is related to both, but not critical. Thanks, though."

"No problem."

The air seemed to shiver. Sakura's eyes briefly glowed bright gold, and she blanched. "That is _not_ good."

"What?"

"I just found out what happens when all the possessed people die."

* * *

The Ten-Tails hunched over, and Naruto took the opportunity to gather himself and make a leap. In his jaws glowed a colossal Tailed Beast Ball, cut with Nature and Wind chakra, and his claws glowed with impossibly sharp edges.

Then the Ten-Tails _roared._

The sound was indescribable. Shigehide crashed beak-first into the ground. Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi, Obito and Deidara were driven to their knees. Gaara, Bee and Naruto collapsed to the ground, clutching their ears, as their partners reacted in atavistic terror.

Blue dragons of light erupted from the Ten-Tails, soaring in their hundreds into the sky, and then converged on the three Jinchuuriki and the Gold and Silver brothers' corpses.

It was over in seconds. Gaara and Killer Bee lay dead, bodies next to those of the foes they had only just beaten, and Naruto was left gasping and clutching at the terrible wounds the forced extraction had caused him.

**AT LAST!**

Sakura recovered first, and Flickered over to Naruto. She began scanning him as the rest of the remaining shinobi from the strike force arrived.

"Wow, Naruto, I'm surprised you're still alive. This kind of spiritual trauma would kill almost anyone."

Naruto grinned weakly. "Runs… in the family."

Kakashi turned to Obito. "This is critically important. Why does the extraction normally take so long?"

"The wills of the demons need to be suppressed." Obito replied promptly. "They don't integrate well – an extraction that fast will… have thrown them into turmoil. They'll be trying to regain individuality."

Sakura glanced up from her work closing Naruto's wounds. "I can confirm that – there's black chakra aplenty, but all nine of the Bijuu are thrashing around trying to escape." She looked down again. "Damn it… the loss of that seal is causing chakra bleed – your network is too used to having it there. I need the gap staunched somehow."

Kakashi knelt down. "I can do it, but I'll be useless for the rest of the battle."

"You know how to fix this kind of thing? What's the seal?"

"No seal." Kakashi's eye contorted into the Eternal Mangekyo. "Shiranui."

White fire ran across his body, then jumped to Naruto and concentrated on his chest. After a moment, the flames died and Sakura rescanned him wonderingly. "He's… fine. Better than fine, actually. His pathways are completely clear, there's no longer any leakage around where the seal used to be and… huh. It even cleaned under his fingernails."

Kakashi slumped, muttering something about overexpensive techniques.

"Right." Naruto ran through three seals and slammed his hand into the ground. "Ichimaru, let Nagato know we need him here _now_. Konoha hospital, fifth floor, room 203."

The silver fox vanished with a wash of air.

"Did Akatsuki keep the bodies of the other Jinchuuriki around?"

"Yeah." Deidara said. "That's where I was taking Gaara's when you got me, yeah. It's in a room a lot further down than that main chamber, yeah."

"Sasuke, you and Deidara go and get them. Sakura… that problem with my seal, before. What does it mean?"

"Basically, without the seal there – and especially without the Bijuu there – your body was pumping chakra to it as part of the normal circulatory cycle, and it was just leaking out."

"If Nagato resurrected the others?"

"They'd die within a few minutes."

"Right. You can do a Jinchuuriki seal, right?"

"Yes." Sakura nodded, decisively. "It's relatively easy to actually do the sealing – well, after looking at yours anyway… the hard part is keeping the Bijuu under control."

"That won't be a problem."

Sakura pointed into the sky suddenly. "Look out!"

Something came hurtling in from the direction of Konoha, stopped three inches above the ground with a burst of repulsion, then fell onto its' four metal legs.

Obito blinked. "That… is a hospital bed… Nagato?"

"I don't know who you are, and I'll find out later." Nagato said, turning to Naruto and Sakura. "What is it?"

"Er… why'd you bring the bed?"

"Strict bed rest. Doctor's orders." Nagato answered.

"Huh."

"Tsunade is scary. Anyway, I assume it is urgent because the Ten-Tails is behind you."

"Yes. How many people can you resurrect in sequence with the Samsara of Life?"

"Quite a lot, so long as they're well preserved. Who are they?"

Sasuke put Yugito Nii on the floor next to them, and vanished again. Deidara did the same with Han.

"All the Jinchuuriki apart from me. None of them damaged beyond death from extraction."

"That I can do." Nagato nodded. "When?"

"In order, Gaara first. You'll know when." Naruto closed his eyes, and when they opened again they were the slit yellow of his Sage Mode. "And make sure you guys are safe. There's going to be a lot of explosions."

Sakura flickered away for a moment, and came back with Gaara and Bee's bodies.

"Now… time to make history." Naruto said, and jumped forward.

* * *

The first warning the Ten-Tails got that Naruto was still alive was when two Rasenshuriken hit it in the face.

It roared, turned and spat annihilation – but Naruto was no longer there. He shot over its' form, hurled another Rasenshuriken, then summoned a horde of clones and slammed fifty Great Ball Rasengan into it all along its' length.

Naruto hit the ground and shot off running, focusing on the things he'd seen in the moment after Millie was torn out of him.

In that moment, the fragments of his mother's chakra which made up his seal had contacted him. Spoken to him, told him things, in the frozen time of his inner self.

The most immediately useful thing was… _this._

Two chains of pure chakra shot out from Naruto's sleeves, entangling the Ten-Tails' right legs and letting him trip it with an almighty pull. He left them in place and charged forward, another Sage Rasenshuriken proceeding him.

* * *

"Did he just…" Sakura asked.

Kakashi smiled. "Like mother, like son."

* * *

Naruto jumped about a quarter mile into the air, and expended the last of his Sage chakra with yet another Rasenshuriken. Focusing, he drew in more of nature's chakra, and dropped back into the state within seconds.

He'd been vulnerable… but he'd also been moving fast and high in the air. Now he was back to full Sage again.

And, by the feel of it, he'd nearly done enough damage.

"Eh, I'm one for overkill anyway." He multiplied himself, and launched dozens of Wind Rasengan in a volley.

The Ten-Tails screamed in rage, its' form roiled – and Naruto flung out another chakra chain with whiplash speed. It sunk into the beast's form, wrapped around something, and _pulled_.

* * *

Sakura gaped. "Nagato! Revive Gaara now!"

Nagato nodded. "Samsara of heavenly life!"

A small ugly statue appeared, and green energy flowed from it to Gaara.

Gaara blinked, and sat up. "What happened? The last thing I remember is-"

Sakura finished her sequence of handseals, drew a seal on Gaara faster than the eye could follow, and activated it. As the One-Tailed Tanuki which Naruto had pulled out of the Juubi fell towards them, it was caught in the effect field of the technique and drawn back into Gaara.

"…oh. This is becoming a habit." Gaara looked at his stomach, to check the seal. "Every time I die, it turns out it is because someone has torn out my Bijuu."

"At least you're back. Again." Sasuke pointed out, putting Fuu down. "Most people don't come back from the dead once. Is Shukaku alright?"

"He is fine. Though he expresses the wish to get very drunk. I believe I shall permit him, once this is over."

Sakura was writing again. "Better get ready to revive Yugito, Nagato. I don't think Naruto's heard of giving people warning."

Three more explosions came in quick succession.

Sasuke drew the Raijin. "Hey, Deidara. I think he could use some help. Let's see who causes the most damage."

"Uchiha, you're my kind of guy, yeah!" Deidara pulled out a storage seal. "Let's see, I've got fifteen dragons and two hundred and thirty birds. What should I start with?"

A shadow clone of Naruto appeared next to them. "Hey, guys, I'd appreciate some fire support – oh, good. Gaara? When I'm recharging Sage mode, you and the other Jinchuuriki hit it with a Tailed Beast Bomb or something equally destructive. Let the others know as they're revived."

Gaara nodded. "Will do."

A barrage of railgun fire smashed into the Ten-Tails' face, followed by an entire explosive dragon.

The clone squinted. "Matatabi on the way in just a second." With that, he popped.

Nagato glanced at Sakura. "It would seem he has heard of giving people warning."

"Statistical outlier. No significance."

A thunderous yowl was heard, as the Two Tailed Cat went soaring into the air.

* * *

"This is pretty cool." Shigehide said, watching the fireworks.

The raccoon next to him gave a chitter.

"What? We invented gunpowder. I appreciate the big bangs."

A kind of chirrup.

"No, I'm not serene. I'm not the Crow Sage. I don't have to be serene."

The raccoon just gave him a look.

"Stop it. That makes me uncomfortable." A close-spaced series of explosions echoed over the ravaged landscape. "Oh, what. What the hell _is_ that?"

Shigehide abruptly glared, forestalling the next comment. "Yes, I know it's the five-tails. I just don't know what animal it is."

The raccoon squeaked.

"That's what a Kirin looks like? Huh. You learn something new every day."

* * *

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted during one of the brief periods when nothing was exploding, having just finished the seal on Bee's chest.

A shadow clone appeared next to her. "What is it?"

"When you take the eight-tails out, then the Juubi will become a lot more stable since the vast majority of its' power will be Millie's! Do you have a plan for that?"

"Yeah." Naruto nodded. "Oh, that reminds me. Who has the best emotional control – you, Sasuke, Kakashi, Deidara or Sai?"

Sakura thought for a moment. "Sai."

"Good. Get him here via that crow, and set him up with a containment seal." The clone dispelled as Naruto's Sage Mode ran out again, and seven Bijuu Balls hit the Ten-Tails in quick succession while he recharged.

* * *

Up until this point, the various bijuu he'd removed had been relatively small fractions of the whole. Even the Seven-Tails, now resealed into Fuu, had been a mere fourteen percent.

But when Naruto sent his chains into the Juubi's form and pulled out Gyūki, a full third of its' remaining chakra was torn out. The backlash was substantial, and more to the point what was left wasn't enough to sustain a ten-tailed form.

As Naruto 'cracked the whip' and sent Gyūki towards Bee's reviving form, he watched with apprehension.

One of the tails vanished. The other nine solidified, becoming Millie's familiar fox-fur, and the rest of its' body became hers.

Nevertheless, there was still a lot of corrupted chakra in there. Rather than fighting the ten-tails, he was fighting a mind-controlled Millie.

"Eh, screw it. You ready, Dad?"

After a moment, Naruto nodded – seemingly to himself. "Good."

One last Sage Mode charge, and he shot forwards just as the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox set itself.

"Earth wall!"

The giant fox looked puzzled for a moment, then was launched two hundred feet into the air by a rock wall which punched out of the ground.

Fifty clones appeared, and threw Wind Rasengan followed by Big Ball Rasengan.

As the fox finally came hurtling back down, six full seconds after takeoff, Naruto span up a Rasenshuriken and left a clone holding it underneath Millie.

Flashing around with a pair of lightning-quick Body Flickers, he built a second one and threw it from above just as she landed on the first.

The Nine-Tails thrashed about in pain as the pair of upper-S Wind techniques detonated at once.

In that brief window when it not only would not, but _could_ not move, Naruto fired off the Chakra Chains barrier and trussed Millie up so she was immobilized.

Sakura ran over. "Sai's arrived – still asleep – and I set up the containment seal on him. Do you need me to do yours?"

"Nah." Naruto walked forward to the enormous, thrashing muzzle, and placed a hand on it. "Dad's got this."

Sakura blinked. "Pardon?"

"Way back when she first got sealed in me, Dad put fragments of himself and Mum in the seal. Mum taught me how to do the chakra chains, and Dad's got the strength to reform my seal once." Naruto grinned. "Good thing he never had to do it before now."

"No kidding…" Sakura muttered.

The two Four Symbols Seals blossomed on Naruto's torso, then hardened into their customary form. Millie dissolved into red chakra, which flowed into the seal – and, as the vast amount of chakra poured back into Naruto, black residue accumulated on the outside.

"Neat."

"Yeah. No non-Millie chakra allowed. Shove it into Sai, he'll annoy it more than it annoys him." Naruto grinned, then frowned. "Hey, look. When she went from solid to intangible, something fell out. Hey, Sasuke! Mind checking what that was?"

Sasuke appeared next to it. "Huh. It's that monk kid."

"Sora?" Naruto checked. "Wow. Wonder what he was doing in the ten-tails."

* * *

"What _was_ he doing?" Kakashi asked Obito.

"Extraction takes time, alright? I kidnapped him, and then threw him into the statue's mouth whole. It had to get Kyuubi chakra from somewhere."

* * *

After about thirty seconds, the process was complete. Sakura, hands glowing blue, gathered up the residual black chakra and Flickered over to Sai to make him the container of it.

This particular pair of Four Symbols Seals had no convenient gap for leakage like the others. Safety first.

Naruto, meanwhile, collapsed onto the floor of the crater with a grin. _Good to have you back, Millie._

**_Good to be back! Wow, I was angry when that nasty ten-tails was in charge. Does it need counselling?"_**

_Need it or not, now that it's sealed into Sai it's going to get it._

"Hey, kid." The crow said, flying overhead.

"Yeah?"

"One of those last death-beams the ten tails fired scored a trench clear to the sea. You'd better move, or you'll be underwater."

Naruto bounced back upright. "Thanks for the warning. Anything else left down here?"

"No, that Sora kid got moved out of the way by Sasuke, and now the Rinnegan user is reviving him."

"Cool." Naruto set off running, and jumped out of the crater complex as it began to fill.

* * *

"Ah, good." Sakura said, as she concluded the sealing process. "That should have finally broken that illusion. Morning, Sai!"

"It is morning?" Sai asked. "There must be a substantial amount of dust in the air, it is still quite dark. And it appears that I have obtained an ecneicsnoc."

"Pardon?"

"The opposite of a conscience. It is ranting at me about murder, death, being foiled and so on. Quite repetitive. I wonder if it would respond to art therapy."

Sakura shrugged. "Worth a try."

"So!" Kakashi said. "All's well that ends well."

Most of the Jinchuuriki nodded, though some of them looked confused.

Then Yagura punched Obito in the jaw.

"Whoa!" Naruto said, surprised. "What was that for?"

"Do you have any idea how long I was mind controlled for?" Yagura said, twitching. "I have to retake the Academy entrance exam!"

"So." Gaara asked. "What do we do now?"

"…go home?"

Yugito nodded. "Good plan. Whoever you are, four-tailed Jinchuuriki."

"Shukaku says that we should keep in touch via the chat room. I assume he will tell me what me means at some point."

Deidara looked across at Han and Roshi. "You guys will vouch for me, yeah?"

"Of course!" Han said expansively. "You may have blown me up forty-seven times when you captured me, but that's all in the past. Roshi, let's go get a drink. We've earned it. Deidara, you're buying."

"What, yeah?"

"You _did_ blow me up forty-seven times."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…"

* * *

"Ah, Kakashi." Sarutobi said. "Somehow I suspected Team Seven were at the heart of this. Kurenai told me what she knew, but she didn't know everything."

"Okay. This could take a while." Kakashi glanced over at the figure at the back of their group, who had a paper bag over his head. "A long while."

* * *

"Turn the village upside down!" Temari insisted. "No stone must be unturned searching for clues as to what happened to the Kazekage! Why aren't you looking for him, Kankuro?"

Kankuro pointed.

Temari looked north. "What… oh."

Arms folded, Gaara surfed back into Suna on the tip of a mighty wave of sand, his robes and hat impeccable.

As the wave reached the outskirts, it tightened into a curl which swept down the main street.

The window to his tower shattered as he reached it, and reconstituted behind him as the curl deposited him at his desk.

"So." He said, to his startled secretary. "What is next on the schedule?"

* * *

Sarutobi sat back."Remarkable. So, Akatsuki is no more?"

"Yes." Nagato and Obito answered at the same time.

Nagato continued. "I am going to create a humanitarian organization, but to call it Akatsuki like my last one would be confusing."

"Well." Sarutobi steepled his fingers. "Firstly, Obito Uchiha. You are to be checked by Inoichi Yamanaka, and if you pass that test when we'll call what you've been doing for the last seventeen-odd years convalescence."

"Thank you, Hokage." Obito bowed. "More than I deserve."

"See that it _is_ what you deserve. Nagato… why are you in that bed? I have to admit, I'm impressed you got it to walk, though."

"Bed rest."

"Unusual definition…" the Third pondered. "Kakashi, you're assigned to keep an eye on Obito and Sai for signs of Juubi influence."

"Wait." Naruto said. "What about him being the head of team seven?"

"That's the other thing." Sarutobi looked satisfied. "The timing of this confrontation is most helpful – the genin exams were yesterday. Team Seven is hereby dissolved, and Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno promoted to Jonin. Report to the mission room tomorrow to find which teams you've been assigned to test and teach."

Floored, the three newly promoted Jonin could only give stunned nods.

"And, finally… Sai. Light duty for now. And regular counselling sessions."

"I understand." Sai said, calmly.

* * *

Mei and her bodyguards mirror-travelled to the outside of the village courtesy of Haku. "What is the reason for the alert?"

"Two large chakra signatures were detected!" The sentry commander replied. "They have been approaching slowly!"

"Hey." A familiar voice called out. "Anyone home?"

"Ukataka?" Mei replied. "What are you doing alive?"

"Long story. Hey, can we come in?"

"We have swords." A quiet voice added. "Nuibari, Kabutowari, Samehada and Kiba."

"What?" Zabuza asked, then chuckled harshly. "So you got Kisame?"

"Actually, that was the one tails container and the eight tails container, or so I am led to believe." Ukataka said. "The nine tails container tore apart Akatsuki's combination of the bijuu, put all of them back in the right place and generally caused enormous damage."

"Nine tails container?" Mei said. "You mean the boy with the orange fixation?"

Zabuza shivered. "Oh, _him_. You know I fought him in Wave country? Didn't go well. Probably a good thing we defaulted on that mission…"

"Wait." Mei said, looking at the silhouettes firming out of the fog. "Is that Yagura?"

"Er, hello?" the quiet voice said again. "Wait, I recognize you."

Everyone tensed.

"You're that genin who inspired me to become a ninja!"

Zabuza dropped his sword.

Ukataka rubbed the back of his neck. "He's kind of hazy about the stuff which happened while he was under mind control… which, for reference, starts about a day before he entered the academy."

* * *

"I could have helped…" Jiraiya muttered. "I have Sage Mode too, I could have broken that illusion…"

* * *

Sasuke looked over his three genin. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I am your new Jonin-Sensei. Basically, I'm better than you. And if I have anything to say about it, I will be the _only_ one better than you by the time I'm finished with you."

* * *

A smashed through three walls as he ran to the outskirts of the village. "Bee! You better have a good reason for pretending you were dead!"

"Look, bro, no dis, you know, but I had to take a holiday or I was gonna blow. And look who I found, underground, when I was around."

Yugito kicked Bee in the back of the knee, and walked past him as he collapsed to the floor. "I was the one revived first, Bee. Sorry for my long absence, sir. There was a death in the family."

"Whose?" A asked.

"Mine."

"I know it's your family! But-"

"No, sir. I died. I was brought back just yesterday and my bijuu resealed into me by some Konoha ninja."

"…huh." The Raikage frowned. "Come on, I want to hear all the details of this! And then I can see if you've lost your edge in the sparring arena."

* * *

"I am Sakura Haruno. And I want to make very clear that your prowess as a ninja is not about who you were born as, or what family you have. It's about making the most of whatever talents you have and taking them to their fullest potential. Everything else does help, but help is all it does."

* * *

"What does this remind you of?" Sai said.

**_MURDER DEATH PAIN KILL RAGE HATE_**

"Really?" Sai frowned, examining the card. "It appears more like a butterfly to me."

The contained mind of "tobi" thrashed around in utmost hatred.

"Now. Let us try art therapy. What colour would you like to start with?"

**_RAGE PAIN KILL BLOOD-_**

"Red, an interesting choice. It can symbolize the sunset, or autumn leaves."

* * *

Deidara, Roshi and Han, arms linked across their shoulders, marched into Iwa singing loudly and drunkenly.

The sentries rubbed their eyes, sure they were seeing things, as Deidara punctuated the chorus with loud explosions from Shibuki.

"This is my boomstick, yeah!" he shouted, then all three plunged into the next verse of _The Hedgehog Song._

* * *

"Perhaps a red… arrow?" Nagato asked.

"Possible." Konan agreed. "But arrows do have connotations of weaponry for civilians."

"Red… no, a sword is a weapon as well. Coming up with a new symbol is difficult. The clouds were a stroke of luck."

* * *

"Hi! I'm Naruto Uzumaki, Jonin. I'm the son of the Fourth, I have more chakra than any other human being alive, I'm the container of the most powerful being on the planet, I am One With Everything, and I am the main reason we have so many S ranked nin in Konoha nowadays. And I was the Dead Last. So my expectations are a bit high for you lot."

His three genin looked between themselves. One of them finally cleared his throat, and spoke up.

"I'm Inari, if you remember. I was the guy in Wave who was really kind of depressed until you got me to stand up for myself. My aim is to make Wave a country with a nina village again, so we can help ourselves!"

"Works for me!" Naruto said. "Who's next?"

"My name is Yukimaru. I want to make Guren proud of me."

"Short, to the point. Fine by me. And last?"

"I'm Isaribi. I had to be cured of a transformation illness by Tsunade, which took a long time, but now I'm ready to learn to be a proper ninja!"

"That's the spirit! Now, go to Training Ground twelve tomorrow morning. The amount of breakfast you eat is up to you… though, you should know that I plan on only giving you lunch when the first training exercise you have is over. And that it'll be stressful, so you might be sick if you eat too much. Nobody wants that."

Naruto waited until the three had left, then smirked. This was going to be _fun._

* * *

AN: And that finishes the fic. Hope everyone enjoyed that last chapter.

It's very, very hard to find characters who are younger than Konohamaru and Hanabi in the series…

And here's an unused concept.

Naruto's true name: _Naruto_. Maelstrom. While he'll get it eventually, the reason this is important is that one interpretation of it is a hurricane – and a hurricane, being made up of large storms, has lightning.

This would be how Naruto eventually gets the Hiraishin working.

Summons:

Daxter: Boss Otter summon. From Jak and Daxter – technically an Ottsel, but close enough.

Shigehide: the crow with Shisui's eye. One of the former names of a Magoichi of Saika.

Unnamed raccoon: the Sage of the Raccoons. Name would have been either Rascal or Woo.

* * *

Vulpine now has a TVTropes page. Do go and have a look, or edit if you want.

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The Ten Tails

How I portray the Ten-Tails in this fic is, essentially, a malevolent idea. It influences and ultimately possesses people in order to manipulate them towards its' true goal, of reincorporating all its' component parts and becoming one again. It had more or less completely influenced Madara decades ago, and it corrupted Obito once he took his head injury by making it seem as though his friend had killed his crush. The black Zetsu was also corrupted.

The reason for doing this was because, essentially, I agree with Kakashi about how improbable the actions of "Tobi" are in the story. I can buy someone undergoing a mental break… though not one that severe so fast, perhaps. I can't buy someone who is barely fifteen, who was completely normal before the age of thirteen when they took crippling injuries, managing a draw with the Fourth Hokage… unless they have some massive offsetting power source. Hence, demonic possession explained a few things.

(And I stil have no idea why Kakashi killed Rin. Either there was a good reason, like "she's a traitor", in which case it's completely bloody justified and Obito should understand it, or there wasn't a good reason and Kakashi's entire character does a hard skew turn to evil. Or it was some kind of illusion to convince Obito that the world of ninja is all darkness and death.)

A few of the problems with the idea of the Infinite Tsukuyomi are also touched on. It's an insane plan, not least of the reasons of which is because the people caught in it would starve or dehydrate or be eaten by wolves or something. And if it's some kind of Instrumentality, it's if anything worse – because then they could have…well… asked. Naruto for one in canon would probably have gone along with "operation make the world better for everyone" if he was convinced of the proposing ninja's bona fides.

Tip: if your goal is altruistic, then mass terrorism is not a useful method to achieve the goal.

(And is anyone a little concerned with Madara's rampant hypocrisy? He, a ninja who claims that the world of ninja is a doomed place of evil and that he has a plan to end it, is someone who earlier in life reacted to an electoral defeat with an assassination attempt powered by bijuu!)


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